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New Daily long term project

88K views 277 replies 41 participants last post by  MadOnVaux! 
#1 ·
Yes, another project thread from me......

So for the last 8 and a half years, I've been driving my 2002 Mondeo Zetec-S. A silver, 2.5 V6 saloon. A superb car, good looking, relatively quick, super reliable having done 94k in my ownership and never ONCE let me down and generally a nice car to drive.



However, as I'm sure some song lyrics once said, nothing ever lasts forever. As much as I love this car, a new job and a 65 mile a day round trip commute in a V6 was never going to cut it. A lack of modern comforts, a V6 that drinks petrol like I drink cider of a weekend and the inevitable signs of age creeping in, coupled with being offered a proper bargain replacement has pretty much sealed it's fate. So, she will be going. I'll replace the rear calipers, discs and pads, MOT it and let her slip away. I will be very very sad to see her go. A lot of memories and miles in this one.....

So, onto the replacement. My neighbour is a great guy who I get on very well with. He recently bought himself a 2.7 V6 diesel Jag to replace his Insignia. Now I've never been a Vauxhall fan really at all but always liked his Insignia. A conversation about selling it ended up with him telling me it was up for £5k but if I wanted it, I could have it for £4k. 59 plate, black, 61k miles, , 2.0 diesel, full comprehensive history and just two owners (him and one other). He Lent it me for a week to see if I liked it........

Yesterday, I transferred the money to him and bought it.



SRi trim level, lots of modern options (climate, sat have, cruise, auto lights, parking sensors etc). Quiet, comfortable, surprisingly brisk and doing 51-52mpg on the work run as opposed to 32mpg at best from the Mondeo. No contest really. Clearly been looked after mechanically. It's had some body/paintwork as it got hit on the driver's side but got repaired. Not the greatest of repairs in terms of paint but I can live with it. Generally very clean for a 60k car but being black has the inevitable swirling. I can sort that however.

So, plans? Get it properly clean and winter prepped and then look at a few upgrades.

Need a few more detailing supplies (clay, spray bottles as tardis seems to have munched all my spray heads ) to do a proper job so that will wait until payday. For now, I started on the wheels. The fronts have clearly seen a poor refurb job so will be done again by a mate in the refurb business. For now, all 4 wheels got taken off and attacked. Rears worse than the front and the history shows work done on a sticking caliper so might explain the state of one wheel. Method was clean down with Bilberry, Autosmart Fallout (several goes as necessary), Tardis, Bilberry again then two coats of Jetseal and three of Poorboys Wheel sealant. Should stop any significant build up....

Wheel as it came off the car.....a fair amount of baked on crap, I think perhaps from the seized sliders. This is one of the rears.



Old wheel weight sticky stuff...



Wheel after several goes with fallout and onto the Tardis. Clearly doing its thing...



And all finished and about to go back on.



So all 4 wheels got done like this and look ok. I don't have any pics of the front but they clearly have seen a refurb, and not a great one at that. Lifting and peeling lacquer etc. Some recent kerbing and generally not happy with them. I'll take them down to my mates place and take the tyres off and then take them to the refurbers.

Plans on the body are a full decontamination with fallout, plenty of Tardis (tough to see either a dragons breath or tardis type product working on a black car, hence just using fallout!) But hey, we shall continue. Then a full clay and correction detail using the Flex. I tried out on a panel and got a 90%+ correction without really trying. Then Jetseal, Black hole and I've got a Dodojuice wax (purple one?) to use over the top.

Then it's onto other mods. Car seems to have full phone prep but no Bluetooth. Looks like you can retro fit the factory Bluetooth but it's a pain and you need a code that Vauxhall are reluctant to give out. Other possible plans are leather to replace the cloth and just maybe VXR alloys. However, that is a 'just maybe' as they are rare and bloody expensive!
 
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#8 ·
Yup. He did me a real favour. £5k was right for a private sale for the car/mileage.

A couple of pics of some of the swirling/hologramming. This oic shows the holograms on the front door. The striping you can see on the rear passenger door is the poor repair paint job. I tried to machine it out buts under the lacquer.





Ill get some pics of the interior tomorrow. Its very clean. The boot is bloody enormous.
 
#9 ·
Good man Ben - health to drive chum.

Firstly, your mondeo looks absolutely stunning bud. Cracking looking car.

The insignia is just the ticket with loads more mpg. You'll have it gleaming in no time chum. I'll jus add my approval of CG Blacklight. Great stuff.

Can't wait for the updates - like a mini rallye project!!

Cooks

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk
 
#10 ·
Thanks Niall.

The mondeo was/is a lovely looking car. The saloon is a very good looking shape. Its been lowered 50mm as well which actually makes it look a bit longer. She had plenty of mods over the years, a full ST220 Recaro interior, a double din touch screen alpine headunit (I was one of the first to fit a double din unit to a Mk3) and a full stereo boot install with a pair of rainbow iPaul amps in a false floor and a sub. I eventually put it back to standard but ill chuck some pics up a bit later. Eventually suffered the famous early mk3 mo deo rusty door bottom, the grille is missing after it flew off on the way to work and the grill.in.the bottom.of the bumper got smashed by an errant pheasant (which ended up dead in the bottom of the bumper as its head for smashed so I eat it as a way of revenge!). She's a bit battle weary these days but is one of the best cars I ever owned. There are some more pics of it on here somewhere as I did a thread when I detailed it.....
 
#11 ·
Then it's onto other mods. Car seems to have full phone prep but no Bluetooth. Looks like you can retro fit the factory Bluetooth but it's a pain and you need a code that Vauxhall are reluctant to give out. Other possible plans are leather to replace the cloth and just maybe VXR alloys. However, that is a 'just maybe' as they are rare and bloody expensive!
I had BT fitted to an Astra J and an Insignia by the same guy - https://tech2.guru/shop/search-by-v...hp-high-kit-astra-j-insignia-supply-only.html - fully recommended.
 
#12 ·
A good friend had an ST tdci - the 2.2 iirc. He got it remapped from 163 to 195 and it blew the head gasket. Lovely car though in ****** Grey. Ive always loved the recaros in ford's too.

I went through the sub/amp phase too. Had a Rockford Fosgate punch transana amp and an infinity sub. Great sounds from the wee 306 D turbo lol.

I was going to say about the saloon. Looks very cool chum - most of the mondeos over here seem to have been hatchbacks.

N


Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk
 
#17 · (Edited)
The back of the insignia's wheels are corroded, my astra's wheels were worse than that at only 12 k and 3 years old, sadly I won't buy another Vauxhall, but a few neighbours around me have Kia's at a similar age and the corrosion has crept around too the front of the wheel already, I wonder what could cause this?
 
#20 ·
I think Vauxhall wheels must come pre-corroded :rolleyes:

I had a real fight to try and get the wheels on Astra sorted under warranty when it was 18 month old, in the end I gave up. Wheels are only covered for 12 months :wall:

When I bought the Inisignia it was 10 months old, so I quickly had the wheels off for a full detail and inspection. They were all starting to go, so I had them swapped under warranty.
 
#28 ·
Ok, proper update time.

So since I bought the Insignia, I've been itching to get after it properly and see just how good I may (or may not) be with my Flex and how good I can make it look. I've also noticed a few marks/scratches etc which generally detract from what is a well cared for car. The biggest bit though for me was the state of the paintwork. Whilst for a black car it wasnt bad from a swirling point of view, the paintwork felt awful to the touch, making a rasping sound when you moved your hand over it. Not good.

So Saturday it rained pretty much all day. Nothing doing there. Went out, bought a few detailing bits and then got drunk on cider…..:D

Today was a different story. Awake properly early again (long story about 03:52 am, every day), I managed to go back to sleep and wake up a bit later. Despite the heavy dew and single digit temps, it was shaping up to be a very nice day. Several brews later, I'm outside, washing the car. It was at this point I realised it would it need claying and I had no clay…..quick jaunt to Halfords (yes, I know, I know, but where else will I get clay on a Sunday?!) and I got a Megs clay refill pack.

Back home, I got busy. Decontamination process started with an all over application of Fallout, which I then washed off and repeated. This was then followed by a liberal application of Tardis, also washed off. It was this point I realised something wasn't right. The paintwork was still rough to the touch, despite my best efforts, which I found very odd. If its not tar or metal contamination, then I can only assume it's over spray. I know the car has seen the body shop at least twice so a definite possibility.

Anyways, got busy claying. Not a huge amount coming off the drivers side but I know that's had relatively recent paint so no surprise. Onto the bonnet and it's a different story. This was perhaps the roughest panel to the touch. The clay was noisy and dragging, despite lots and lots of Born Slippy. Upon inspection, there was nothing other than this very light orange tinge…



Possibly bonded metal contamination but I'd have expected a double hit of Fallout to remove that. I've no idea what it is/was but appeared over several more panels on the passenger side too.

Passenger side doors are original paint, bit of tar here but nothing major.



So, this is what I was left with. Not bad from distance…



Not great close up. Alan (my neighbour and previous owner) reckons he drover too close to a bush, causing this scrape. It's down the entire length of the passenger side and I originally thought it a poor attempt at a keying….swirling visible in the second pic with the flash reflection





Couple of car park door dings…





Time to polish. Started with the passenger side as the scrape was bugging me the most. Taped up and after one pass using the Flex with a yellow pad and Menz Power finish…



And then after refining with final finish



Front and rear doors done and a half decent reflection



Rear quarter then done too. Whole side wiped down with Gtechniq Panel wipe and then E Z Creme glaze applied by machine.



Dinner was about ready and the light fading so quickly did the exhaust tip and called it a day.





Thats all I got done today. Achieved I think about 90% correction, if not a little more which I'm very pleased with. Need to see it in direct sunlight though to make sure there are no holograms. Plans are to machine the rest, glaze, then Jetseal 109. Some wax over the top of that should see her good for winter.
 
#35 ·
So I knew the car had had an aftermarket front parking sensor kit fitted. What I didn't realise until last night when I had them switched on when I came home in the dark is that there is a zdisplay thats been mounted on the dash! I thought it was a sensor for one of the various auto systems.....



Quite pleased with that. Should stop the wife bumping it when she finally gets brave enough to drive it! Going to try and get on and get some more machine polishing done today as I am now off work until a week Monday.
 
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