Hi all :grin: ,

For a while I was waxing my new T5 by hand but it just takes too long and most of all I’m not quite sure it actually does a good job of preventing marks on the clear coat. I got good towels meant for car paint but after I wash and dry the car I have the impression it makes small marks. I'm being careful and got lost of good tips for safely cleaning the car. My car is black whish doesn’t help.

So I’m considering buying an electric car polisher. It’s all over the place from $25 to $200. Porter cable seems to have a great one with random rotation but you can find random polisher cheaper.

Does anyone know a good polisher not too expensive or do I have to put the money as an investment to protect the paint?

Greg

Anybody?

don't know name brand but you want one with the velcro buffing pads and polisher pads. Buy 2 of each pad so when you use one and need to wash it you have a second to finish the job.

What do you use to clean pads full of wax before the next polish. It can't be very good do polish with dry wax on the pad?

Greg

take the velcro pad off and put face down in a 5 gal bucket of warm watter with mild laundry detergent and scub briefly with your fingers or use a regular brush and rinse. Then put pad back on buffer and hit the trigger a couple times to quickly spin the water out and then let dry face up in the sun and within 30 minutes or so when you are ready to rotate buffing pads again it wil be dry.

I have done that for years and it works

Thanks for the tips :beer:
I especially like the face up drying part. Makes a lot of sens...
If you don't mind what polisher do you have and how much have you pay for it?
Satisfied with it?

Greg

I have a Black and Decker 7" variable speed polisher/sander. I just put the pad in the washing machine (then drier) when Im done. Ive had it for almost ten years, so I dont remember what I paid for it. Also never had a problem doing the whole car with the same pad.

Personally, I wouldnt use a polisher just for waxing on a black car (and I had one!). You'll notice swirls form the policher in direct sunlight. I only used the polisher to buff out scratches, then waxed by hand.

My 2 cents.

Here goes....

- wash car thoroughly with mild car detergent and let it stand dry
- use a "auto detailing clay" to remove contaminants
- finish off with Meguiars NXT tech wax by hand and buff lightly.
NXT will hide minor swirl marks, not remove them.

IMHO polishers, buffers or any electric polishers are a bad idea.

Why?

Because each time you use them they will reduce the layer of clearcoat on your car. This is the only barrier between the paint on your car and external elements.

Next time you use them...pause and listen....you can hear your car cry as you exfoliate its "skin". The difference, is that your human skin can regenerate....as for the car...it can't!

I should have been more clear. Poopbunny is right. Polishers shouldn't be used all the time. They should be used when the paint is too faded for hand wax, or there are scratches/swirls/other paint imperfections that are that are too deep into the paint.

there's no clearcoat left on my car :crying:

buddy who had it before me let it sit outside for 2 years, didn't even touch it... :crying: then it started up first time no problem.

Thanks guys!!!

I'm glad to get some feed back because it starts to clear up things a bit.
I had some suspicion on the polishing method and now I can clearly see that waxing is more of a maintenance type fix while polishing is more on the repair side. I went on that web sites that have great advise for both but they don’t clearly distinguish the two. I think it was either www.autopia-carcare.com or some other site (not sure).

Now here comes the question. After waxing my car (which is relatively new, 2005 model of the lot bought in august) I get a shinier result but it seems that I can’t avoid getting more and more micro swirls or straight marks. I think I bought good towels for that but still I feel I don’t get quite the result I’m hoping out of the waxing. I understand waxing doesn’t repair these micro marks but shouldn’t make it disappear at least for a while until the wax comes off again. What should I do?

Again as I said before my car is black which really doesn’t help. I thought that maybe it is because I don’t have the correct buffing tools. That is why I thought a polisher could have been what I needed. I’ve heard some people mentioning that they buff their waxed car with some kind of polisher. Is that a bad thing?

Do I need to put more coats? Maybe I’m trying to hard to dry the car fully with the towels. I clean the towels pretty well and I use multiple of them to make sure that the dirt particles collected in the towels when removing the first water doesn’t affect the clear coat? Maybe I just don’t know how to buff the car! Right now I’m just using a towel and go back and forth on small area at a time to remove the dried wax. I think I used Meguiars gold wax. I’m waiting about half an hour or more before buffing. Is that too short, too long?

Greg

There could be a bunch of reasons u still get the swirls. Do u ever use a car wash? You'll notice lots of swirls from them. What kind of towels are u using? Personally, I only use bathroom towels (sneak one from my wife now and then to the garage :) ) Meguiars is good, so maybe you're wiping off the wax with too much pressure?

Personally I just wipe the car down after washing, next dress the tires/wheel wells as the car air dries the rest of the way. So I dont think the way u dry it is the issue.


If I read u right earlier, dont poilsh after waxing. You polish first then wax. But u dont have to polish before waxing. As u said, polish is more to repair the paint, waxing is for maintanence.

I would not try to remove the swirls if I were you. The only way to remove the swirls is to use substances containing some form of cutting compound (which includes most polishers). You are essentially removing a layer of clearcoat, rubbing and "cutting" the top layer off until it matches that of the pit of a swirl.

Then it won't be long before swirls / the odd scuffing (caused by eg driving close to bushes) would appear again. One can become obsessed trying to remove these swirls by more polishing. There will be a finite number of times you can do this before gloss (clearcoat) dissappears.

You have a 2005, one of the latest car amongst forum members here. Preserve it, not fix it.

Give NXT a go. I use it. "Auckland" uses it too.

http://www.meguiars.com/

Cost more than other brands but they are the best.

http://www.meguiars.com/estore/product_det....cfm?sku=G12718

Apply NXT, let dry haze, buff off with cotton towel by hand.

This is a good read for me too!
:)

THANKS!

Hi ampangbear

If you get to use Mequiars NXT, let me know what you think, or if you think something else is better. I am always open to suggestions. I have so many half used bottles of waxes :crying: but no longer use because I found something better.

Your avatar reminds of this place I visited when I was a kid called Ampang Park. We stopped by an A&W nearby and there was this mall with like an amusement park at the top level. One of my fondest childhood memories.

I saw the paint job on your 850. Impressive. Looks factory! How much did it cost and how long did it take? Looks like they did a good assemble, paint, then re-assembly?

Color is very important to me. It is my #1 consideration in buying a used car.

:thumbsup:

Has anyone ever tried Zymol? Excellent product. I always use it.

I haven't seen zymol in stores but I'll look online.

Hey! Just to give a quick update on my swirl problem. So this weekend I decided I was due for a wash and wax.
I though about what I did before and try few things. Amazingly I got good results and was much happier with the results :grin: .
Best way to learn is to correct errors... which means you have to do them first.
Anyway here is what I did:

> The obvious: I rinsed the car thoroughly before washing. I didn’t read that any were and it seems to be almost essential. The goal for me was to remove most contaminant before using any kind of cleaning sponge which otherwise would have end up stuck in the sponge.

> Follow up: I looked closely at my sponge and noticed small particles. So I though that the sponge is just not good as no matter how hard I will try to clean it, it will keep some debris. I didn’t have mittens as read some where so I just used a small cotton towel to spread soap on the car and wipe/wash.

> Different: Then I dried the car and for change I didn’t use the chamois whish also seems hard to clean and get rid of some particles stuck in its fibers. Plus when drying the chamois it tends to harden which I thought could create swirls.

> Waxing: After all done I waxed the car and again l looked at my waxing sponge and saw some particles so the same way I washed the car, I used a small folded cotton towel to spread the wax. Amazingly I found it to be easier to do and faster with more control over the amount. The down side was that I wasted some wax as the towel would feel with wax more easily until saturated.

> After buffing it seems that swirls were less visible.

I was happy with myself and hope this might help someone else.
Greg :beer:

I have a Black 2006 s40, and this is what works for me.

1. Rinse car off first to remove top layer of dirt so you don't scratch your paint when you scrub it.

2. Use a "lint free" or microfiber washing mit or cloth to clean your car. Use a mild dish soap, don't waste your money on car wash soap that they sell in the autoparts store. I use dawn dish soap, it works great.

3. Wash your car in sections, by that I mean wash the hood and front end and then immediately rinse so the soap doesn't get baked on (happens all the time on black cars and it can create paint swirls when you go to apply wax)

4. After gently scrubbing the car I highly recommend using Mr. Clean AutoDry Car wash. This stuff is great and it is worth the money. Using this will eliminate the need to dry the car with another cloth, reducing the possibility of swirls and scratches. The car will dry very quickly and spot free!

5. Once the car is completely dry I recommend waxing using Zymol Cleaner wax. This stuff is expensive but it is by far THE BEST CAR WAX EVER. This stuff makes my black car look like a mirror on wheels. I have use many many different kinds of wax, including NXT and Gold class, Zymol cleaner wax is excellent, especially on black cars. Zymol is also 1000 times easier to remove than NXT.

6. When applying the wax, make sure you use a lot and spread it evenly. Give it plently of time to dry and harden so that it fills in all the existing imperfections in the paint surface. When removing the wax use VERY VERY light pressure with a completely new and wax free cloth (microfiber) Buff very lightly and the top layer of hardened wax will come off very easily leaving behind the most smooth finish possible.

7. After you finish removing all the wax I recommend spraying the entire car with a light mist of COLD water. This helps to bring out the true shine and gloss of the wax, then buff the car VERY LIGHTLY with another clean dry microfiber towel.

8. If you follow these steps I guarentee your car will look amazing!

Sorry these instructions are so long, I just take pride in making my car look its best.

Zymol

Wow ! I am convinced!

But we don't get them in New Zealand (otherwise I would have tried it already) :crying:

I don't find NXT difficult to remove.

Do you get a better mirror glaze than NXT?

It's not that NXT is hard to remove, just that Zymol flakes off really easily. I have gotten a better finish with Zymol and it lasts much longer than NXT.