Sam, I really think you should have put some UV resistant paint over your headlights before sealing them. The UV rays are what really cause the yellowing, cracking and fogging.
The solution is the original plastic polish made by Novus. It's inexpensive and really does keep headlights from fading if applied every couple of weeks. The #1 is a simple spray with no abrasives. One tiny squirt is enough to do both headlights if they are new. Works on fiberglass/clearcoat, and most of your interior. Does NOT work on fake leather, rubber, or any soft surfaces, which it will discolor. Plastic and paint only.
As a hobby detailer I cringed at the buffing without masking, leaving the clearcoat residue on the bumper, claying with putty without properly washing it first and topping off with a ceramic coat without swirl removal first.
I haven't even watched the video yet but OH MY GOD! This sounds horrible... He used clay bar without "properly" washing it but did he at least properly wash the thing before he "sealed" it all in with the ceramic coating? The reason why I ask and not just see myself is because... My heart can't take that kind of abuse and willful ignorance.. I just won't watch! Lol
People who have their cars re-possessed know what's going to happen and stop doing maintenance on it. Just like rentals and lease vehicles, people don't treat them well.
I leased my Jeep Cherokee and cared for it religiously. I didn't want any excuse from the turds at NW Chrysler Jeep Fiat Tata whateverthef**k to try to spainge any more $$ from me. The lease, for me at least, was wise as I loathed the service Dept. and didn't want anything to do with them, tho the Jeep was perfectly nice for the 3 years I leased it.
@johnny smit - A lease is only a good financial option for someone who NEEDS a new vehicle under warranty AND can write off the payments through their business or work.
Pretend this Audi TT was your car and you just watched me detail it; now leave your Google review along with a 1-5 star rating 👇(A WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN, THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING)
4 Stars. The paint and headlights look new again! A little bit of buffing residue left on some trim but overall would recommend. I should have paid for the next level detail to get under the hood and inside the doors cleaned up.
100% Agree! I bought a 2004 3.2 roadster a couple of years ago and it was the cheapest in the UK. Spent around £1500 fixing it up including half shaft replacement, swapping out some broken modules and a service plus all the fluids, but it’s now absolutely perfect, everything works as it should! Yes it sounds great already, but you can make it sound even better for free by drilling some large ~30mm holes in the dirty side of the airbox. You get more induction noise and it just sounds incredible. Another cheap mod for the V6 is what’s called the Flapper Mod. There’s a vacuum operated valve in the right hand tail pipe which the ECU controls to pass drive-by noise regulations and to stop some exhaust boomy-ness at certain revs. I’ve plumbed in an electric air valve so I can open the flap for more noise when I want it. It does get a bit boomy at ~55mph so I can switch the valve back over to the ECU control for some peace. One more thing, I notice that like almost all the radios out there in TTs the button logos have been worn away. You can buy new button decals to properly recondition the radio and make it look like new!
6:58 Try using Meguiars headlight coating. Comes in a light blue aerosol can and has a 2018 explorer headlight on it. It works AMAZINGLY well. I sanded my headlight 3 years ago and applied a few coats of the headlight coating to it. My headlights still have not hazed and it sits in the sun every single day. They look factory new!
@@tylermatson3986 Thats wrong. I'm in the German R32 and VR6 Community since 2012. The TT 8N like Samcracs and his successor the TT 8J and also Golf Mk4 and Mk5 R32 are ALL VR6 Engines. A V6 or inline 6 cannot fit into the Engine Bay of a TT or Golf. Only older Passat and Audi A4 A6 and so on have a V6 with 60 or 90 degree bank angle with two Cylinder Heads. VR6 = All 6 Pistons under ONE Head mounted. And a Inline 6 is to long to fit ;)
@@tylermatson3986 I have let's say "the best of both worlds" ;) 2008 Mk5 R32 DSG with 78k miles and custom Exhaust and a 2012 TT RS Manual with the inline 5 2.5T and 60k miles :)
@@tylermatson3986 Also the Gen1 24V VR6 in the TT 8N or Mk4 R32 are sounding much better ( with a good exhaust) then the newer ones in the MK5 or the 3.6 (3.6 has 8 degree Bank Angle, 3.2 15 degree). The older ones are a bit rougher and have a dirtyer sound. Mk5 and newer are a little bit tamed from it's sound.
Actually, it slowly evaporates in heat and UV light. In normal driving conditions, it lasts a few months. Longer, of course, if you park it out of the sun at work and in the garage at home.
Whether it works or not, Plumbers Putty skyrockets in price after Sam Cracc video! Still cheaper than a clay bar but Plumbers are taking out a contract on S.C.!
Great job, Sam. Will give it a solid 4 for effort. You have heard poor old Chevy just wanted to be a Cadillac. Well, this or old Audi just wanted to be a Lambo. You have done your best to make its dream come ttrue.
You need to get yourself a clay mitt or cloth you can use it many times and makes it go quicker. Also if you get a Rupes long throw da polisher it will use less compound or polish while giving you better results and less aggressive so your less likely to burn thru the clear
Sam.. the launch control is standard on the V6. RTM for more info. We've had 2 x 1.8T and 2 x 3.2 V6s previously. I can totally agree with Sam, the DSG is something else. We've had some serious fun in the MK1 TTs and the V6 is by far the best. The manual transmission in the 1.8T has a real Golf MK1 GTi feel to it 👍🏾
Came in here to say similar. Don’t know about US 3.2DSG TTs, but Uk ones definitely came with Launch Control. Think it was esp off, Sports, hard on brake and mash the loud pedal?
I have understood that liners should be done1/2 at the time - fit the cloth, fold back half, spray, fold the other half back, spray, done. Of course the last one I did was a Caravan liner, which is a little bigger
5 Stars! you improved the look drastically, much better that the OCD Ammo guy would . Especially the Plumbers putty, bought some today. Absolutely a great little car. Bought the same car for my son when he graduated from Engineering school. He loved it. Great heated seats in the winter.
4 stars, the attention to detail was impeccable, Sam not only focused on restoring the original paint condition but took into account future external conditions this vehicle would be exposed to. He also was conscious of the time constraint but didnt sacrifice the quality of work when restoring the headlights.
I use elmer's spray adhesive a lot but it dries really quick. You want something you can lay on over the entire headliner before it dries. You could use water based contact cement, you let that dry completely but the thing is, once the headliner makes contact, it ain't never coming off again so you don't want to screw up even a little.
Thats pretty typical on most cars from factory, due to the different materials underneath. The camera often exaggerates this effect. This is a 15 or so year old car though, so its quite likely the bumper has been repainted and the colour match is slightly off.
Unless you use UV resistant wax, the aging of the primer used on the plastics will cause the paint above to discolor/age at a different rate. This is largely not a problem on most things made since about 2013/2014 or so when they figured out how to make plastic primer that aged at the same rate as metal primer, but anything older or left out in the sun is going to have this two-tone effect. The solution is of course to garage the thing or use a UV resistant car cover. Best $300 I ever spent as my own car looks nearly new after 6 years.
It's go ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Considering how it looked before the detail, the finished result was surprising. It did look a little rushed because you can see the missed spots in the grille but still impressive results. I'll be checking out the ceramic coating.
If you're still worried about the transmission just order a manual conversion kit from the guys at GatedSix. It's backed by the folks that made the first gated six-speed manual 430 Scuderia, and they have kits for the 360.
Best way to protect the headlights after sanding out the fading is to lacquer them with conventional clear coat, it sets properly, contains the necessary UV protection and won't need re-applying every time you wash the car.
Disappointing that this car was not featured more in depth and detail like some of the others you have done, and that the 'mods' talked about just didn't really happen beyond the suspension upgrade. Have been thinking of buying one of these V 6 versions to upgrade and was looking forward to seeing you really improve it and go through completely it over several episodes.
Didn't quite get launch control technique right. Need to use two feet. One on the brake the other pressing on the accelerator. Rev to 3500, it has a preset limiter. Lift the brake peddle and see what happens. VR6 with DSG and Quattro is an amazing combo. It's almost like having a cheap Porsche.
4/5 great motor, I personally do not like the platform, but it would be a great track base for anyone getting into the market. Low centre of gravity and decent weight distribution.
This car Was my sons dream when he was small he loved the seats that had the baseball type look and now he is 20 he can not ride it yet because hear in Italy it has too mutch power
I won a motorcycle about a month ago for 2800. At the pickup the cost was 3640. Last week i picked up an ek civic for 375 and my fees made it nearly 700 dollars basically eliminating profit after I repaired a couple things. The charges copart imposes are astronomical considering I have to pay to even bid.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ sam really tried his best to restore my TT. He even offered a chicken dinner with the detail and restore. Who does that? I'll def be bringing the rest of my fleet to him
Is the color of the front end fascia supposed to be different? Looks like it doesn't quite match, but can't tell if it matches the side moulding color?
Wait just a minute now, I want to ask a question. Is this ceramic coating is the same as the one that detail shops and window tinting like Lumarr use? Because they asked for $800+ to do a 3 layers of coating on my Camry.
Sam love the channel and the content. Been a subscriber for over three years. But I think you should try to be more professional every now and then, for example at these detailing things. And I'd hope you brought some longer time projects to the channel, now we see so many projects with only couple videos about them.
Enjoyed the result achieved on the TT. Looking forward to next videos on the 360 Spider, best to be 100% on workshop procedure so you don't overfill anything, like you did with the dry sump engine oil reservoir Good luck!!
I have my car ceramic coated,it's not as magical as he makes it sound but it is still really nice. I do still wax my car every few washes and do a waterless wash with rainx when it gets slightly "dusty" but not enough to wash. I like to after a wash with wash and wax to follow it up with "hybrid ceramic" detailer. The shine is amazing and water runs right off. After about a year and some change the ceramic coating had to be redone but I find it worth it. Also launch control is fun,should get it tuned asap. I want to see the DSG service!!! Let's get a video of it.
Sam, you absolutely should never use a typical wax on plastic headlights, because they normally use petrochemicals as solvents. Every headlight plastic, whether it is acrylic or polcarbonate (Lexan) will be permanently damaged by any petrochemical or ammonia. According to the companies that make the plastics, this WILL ALWAYS cause yellowing and crazing over the years. Worse than UV exposure. FWIW, make sure to keep petrochemicals off the lenses.
Thats something that you don't ever hear on this channel "we are finishing this project..." (in regards to the Ferrari) been following forever and never once heard him talk about fully finishing anything haha
Samcrac get your fading cluster screen replaced by Clusters By Litke. He's replaced thousands of those early generation screens because it's so common for them to fade. Once summer comes back the screen may fade worse due to the temp changes. Talk to Humble Mechanic if you don't believe me
You really sold me this Audi :) But I'm not buying any cars right now. I'm looking forward to the next chapter of the Ferrari. By the way, I'm buying busted and old electronic devices (not vintage only retro) and try to fix them and sell them with a little gain. Sometimes it's a win, sometimes I'm losing on them but overall I'd like to think I'm in positive so far. So I understand your position of gambling with these cars, I do something similar in small scale and I'm mostly enjoying it :)