Well, I keep my car in the garage for the most part during the winter and I rarely take it out. However, spring is right around the corner and the weather is starting to warm. So, I thought I would do a little pre-spring detailing.

I washed the car on Friday and then today added a coat of P21S wax. I was looking at the exhaust tips and noticed that they were looking a little dull and had a good amount of road tar stuck to them.

It was no problem taking the tips off the exhaust because my car is slightly less than two years old. Here's what they looked like when I took them off:


First thing was to soak them in a bucket of hot water and dish soap for 30 minutes. Then I scrubed them with a wheel brush, let them soak 10 more minutes, scrubbed them again, and then rinsed them off. Here's what they looked like after their bath:

Then I polished them with Poorboy's Pro Polish and my PC with a white LC spot buffs pad. Finally, I sealed the tips with Wolgang Sealant. Here's the final result along with the formerly white pad:

 

holy crap, awesome job there! gotta do this next weekend

 

wow, very nice job-
earned that badge mikeyc!!!

 

Yeah. I get a little wacko sometimes. You should see my engine bay. You could eat off of it.

 

Awesome job MikeyC. It is amazing what a PC and the proper pads can do. I keep telling myself I am going to get one, then I chicken out worrying that I will mess something up. I can always practice on my beater truck. Now lets see the engine bay

 

Well . . . if you insist.

 

Wow,
Looks cleaner then when it came off the showroom floor. What products do you use on the engine bay?

 

Meguiar's Safe-D-Greaser to clean and CD2 Engine Detailer for dressing.

I'm so embarassed by the dark spot on the airbox. I'm hoping to get that fixed soon.

 

I'm with you....i'm picking up a PC this week and am going to practice on the beater.

Looks really nice MikeyC. Would it be as easy of a task to remove the tips from an '00?

 

I'm fairly sure that older models have their tips attached in the same way. It's just a single screw on the bottom of the tip that you need a socket set to remove. My only concern with an older car would be that the screw has rusted into place. I've heard other people say they have this problem on their cars. I'm going to try to remove my tips once or twice a year from now on in an effort to prevent the screw from getting stuck.