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Old 15th January 2017, 01:46 PM
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Default She's Away Again...

So, I think I mentioned my little hit-and-run incident I had last year. If not, here's a brief overview:

Before driving the car to Glasgow to get the transmission flush at Mackies (we all know how that turned out!), I thought I'd give her a wash. Once finished, my Volvo was making puppy-dog eyes at me, so I moved the Audi out of the drive to wash the Volvo. Having washed the Volvo, I started packing my gear away when my neighbour pulled into the shared drive. As she came in, she looked at the Audi and commented "Wow, I like that car". Feeling quite pleased with my efforts, I packed the rest of my gear and took a quick shower before returning to pull the Audi into the drive.

As I walked up to the car, I saw a streak of blue down the side of the car and, at first, I smiled at the incredible reflection I'd achieved. Of course, as I realised the reflection didn't move as I got closer to the car, I realised it wasn't a reflection but actually a giant blue scrape.

Here's the damage, as photographed on the day:



To cut a long story short(er), my neighbour has the only blue car on the street and admitted causing the damage. She didn't want to go through her insurance, so offered to pay for the repair.

Fast forward six months, and the Audi was taken to KDS Keltec Detailing in Gillingham for the repairs yesterday. I'm a horribly picky git and they're the only people I'd trust with painting my car... especially considering the poor job Audi did with my tailgate handle.

Here she is as KDS, looking filthy after a combination of driving through some awful weather, and also another neighbour removing the rendering on the front of their house to cover all the parked cars in plaster dust:



You can see the damage looks a lot better without the chalky paint marks, which were removed during my normal wash routine.

While the car is in, I'm also having the wheels refurbed at Lepsons back to the factory colour, the front bumper resprayed and a new front grill fitted. Funny story about the wheels: Audi were kind enough to lend me an alloy wheel in the factory colour, so I could be sure to get the right colour. FYI, the Audi colour code for our wheels is 8Z8. Lepsons told me their closest finish to factory Audi S8 wheels is 'Silver Chrome'. When I told KDS that I was planning on borrowing a wheel for colour comparison, they thought I was a little crazy and commented that Lepsons will have done thousands of Audi wheels. I stuck to it, and when I got there, compared the Silver Chrome to the OEM wheel and it was WAY off! Silver Chrome is a match for the semi-chrome finish I've seen on some of the new A4 courtesy cars I've had. Their actual closest match was 'Standard Silver ST-SP'. Which is a normal silver wheel with a little added metal fleck. I'm so glad I went to the trouble of checking!

I've made enquiries about having having a little damage to the driver's seat bolster repaired too, but they weren't too keen on doing that. They're also going to see if they can match the finish on the mirrors. If so, the mirror casings will be resprayed too. The car was too dirty to make an assessment at the time. I may also get them to paint my rear brake callipers silver.

Although I know she's in good hands, I still feel very nervous leaving her and couldn't stop looking back as I walked away.
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Old 15th January 2017, 01:47 PM
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Oops. I meant to post this in Daily Banter. Mods, please feel free to move it.
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Old 15th January 2017, 03:13 PM
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Good luck with it. One thing that puzzles is your quest for the correct OEM colours, yet you're thinking about having the brake calipers painted silver?
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Old 15th January 2017, 03:38 PM
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Thanks. Yes, valid point about the callipers. The trouble is, on top of the fact that the rear callipers look so tatty on mine, they also look bland compared with the fronts and I've grown to hate them. When I first bought the car, I wondered whether someone had swapped the rear ceramics in favour of standard steel brakes!

I asked for a quote to spray them in the same colour as the fronts but it was more than I was willing to spend. To hand-paint the rears, they offer the choice of blue, red, silver or black.

I'm still deciding and I'd ideally prefer the colour of the fronts but the silver may just stop them annoying me enough to forget about them.
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Old 15th January 2017, 03:51 PM
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Aside from colour matching the wheels, it sounds like this is a good place to take the car, they obviously impressed you enough before so I'll be interested in seeing the results, is this where you did the detailing course?

When you get her back, what's next on your hit list of stuff to do?
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Old 15th January 2017, 04:10 PM
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Yes, KDS ran the detailing courses I attended. I did a couple of short courses (nothing pro). One was a one-day course at their premises and the other was a couple of 1hr sessions at the Waxstock show a couple of years ago.

After the bodywork is done, I'll likely get a paint protection film applied to the newly sprayed bumper. I asked KDS to do it, but they couldn't get a pre-cut pattern for the shape of our bumpers, so suggested I take it elsewhere. I found a place in Ascot who were only too happy.

Once that is done, it's time for the carbon clean, injector clean and exhaust swap at VAGtech.

I have a few DIY tasks to do too - polish the rest of the paintwork, fit a new glovebox damper, fit the LED reverse bulbs (that I keep wimping out of doing!), get the boot struts re-gassed and I have a new set of wipers ready to go on.
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Old 15th January 2017, 07:21 PM
1781cc 1781cc is offline
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who does the boot strut regassing?

Gonna be a lovely car when she's all sorted (not that she isn't now but you know what I mean!) - i'll be interested to hear of your experiences with VAGtech, specially as they are close to me as well.

I'll be doing the carbon at VRS I think
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Old 15th January 2017, 07:51 PM
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SGS Engineering do the boot strut re-gassing: http://www.sgs-engineering.com/gas-s...assing-service

Ha! Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm just too pedantic to own a used car!

Ooh, I'd be keen to hear about VRS. When are you thinking of having yours done? VAGtech have impressed me so far and they come highly recommended by a trusted mechanic. If all goes well, I'm hoping to make them my regular garage.
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Old 28th January 2017, 05:11 PM
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So there's been a little progress. My neighbour decided not to be as magnanimous as she started out and wanted to dispute the repair amount, then whether she caused the damage at all etc etc. After a number of heated conversations, she called me today and curtly told me that she had called KDS and settled the bill.

I have mixed feelings about it, in truth. On one hand, I'm pleased the arguments are over and, on the other, I worry about my relationship with my neighbour. I advised her a number of times to go through insurance but she didn't want to.

The car should be ready next week and I can't wait to have her back.
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Old 28th January 2017, 06:10 PM
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That sucks mate but at least it's sorted now, I've learnt one thing over the years and that's not to trust anyone where money is involved
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