Can't get rid of all the scratches

Linneo

Linneo

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Hello guys.
I'm working on my black 2008 e92 BMW.
Using 3D HD Adapt and Lake Country orange 5.5" foam pads on a DA Porter Cable.
After 4 rounds of 7 passes the paint shows great improvement, but a lot of scratches are still there.

This is the trunk lid where I'm starting:

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It's hard to get good pictures on this paint. But you can get an idea. There are more scratches than you can see on the picture. This is before:

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This is after 4 sessions of 7 passes:
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Pads:
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What should I change? Try to buy something more aggressive than HD Adapt or get a more cutting pad?

Thank you

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If it's anything like the paint on the 2 M3's I did recently you'll need to go more aggressive. The paint on those was rock hard. It was pretty trashed, I ended us with my PE14, wool, and 3D Cut+. What kind of compounds do you have?

You can try the adapt on a heavy cutting pad. If that doesn't do it heavy cutting pad and a compound.
 
From your pics, those look like RIDS. Random Isolated Deep Scratch.
 
First of all, your are using polishing pads. This is not aggressive enough for scratches deeper than swirls and light marring.

So you should upgrade to either foam cutting pads, or microfiber cutting pads.

Second, these scratches might require wet sanding if they are deep enough. Very hard to tell from a picture.

Third, you are using a porter cable, which is one of the weakest machine, so even with the right pad and compound, it will require more time and effort to remove deep scratches. Make sure you use very slow arm movement, I recomment moving the machine at the rate of 1 inch per second across the surface to give your aggrasive time to work.

I don't know how good Adapt is, but you might want to try a different compound if you are not getting results with this one. You should be able to easilly find Meguiar's Ultimate Compound locally. It should give you a decent alternative. If you can get your hand on Meguiar's D300, that is the best compound I have used so far. Lots of detailers swear by Menzerna compounds too but I have never used any of them so I could not suggest one.
 
Great advice so far and I'd agree a compound and a more aggressive pad would be a good start.

I'd also ask you to consider something else: How for do you want to go with this work? Are you looking for 100% perfection? How much of the clearcoat are you willing to abrade as you pursue perfection? If the car is a daily driver, I don't know if I'd start going down the road of wool pads, rotary polishers, or wet sanding. It might be better to try a compound and a cutting pad, and make the best of the results you get with that combination.
 
Agree with others, speaking from experience (my dailly is a Sparkling Graphite Metallic E90 335i), metallic BMW paints are pretty hard. I'd try to find a more aggressive product locally as others have mentioned, Megs UC, M105, or even 3M compound are available at local automotive retailers. Megs UC would be the most user friendly and cheapest. That doesn't get it then combine with more aggressive pad, like microfiber cutting pads.....after that though you could introduce some light marring, then you could follow up with your adapt on a white pad.....it should finish down nicely.
 
Thank you guys. Tomorrow I'll make a visit to my local detailing shop to see what I can find. I didn't think it would be a hard paint, but it is.
About the scratches, pictures don't show exactly what's there. On the pictures you can see a few RIDS, but there are lots of them, and they don't look deep. It's like swirls but all in straight line. I've own this car for the last 5 years, and I've tried to be careful when washing it. I never do circles when washing or drying. I guess the scratches are straight line swirls.
I'll let you know if I can get a more aggressive compound and pads.

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My '05 BMW 330i laughs at foam pads in general. For any serious correction, I need to use wool.
 
Agreed with all said...

Everything that've read---BMW and Mercedes have hard paint!

Tom
 
Ok, I've been on my local shop today.
I couldn't find what you all guys advised me to use.
I ended up buying the Koch Chemie M2.01 "Hochglanz-Antihologramm-Politur" and a Flexipads Microfibre Pad "Finishing GRIP" for medium and hard paints.
They've promised I would get awesome results on the BMW hard clear coat.
But you know how it is, until I can't test it, I will not know. I may have to wait until Friday.
Any advice on this product?
 
Linneo said:
Ok, I've been on my local shop today.
I couldn't find what you all guys advised me to use.
I ended up buying the Koch Chemie M2.01 "Hochglanz-Antihologramm-Politur" and a Flexipads Microfibre Pad "Finishing GRIP" for medium and hard paints.
They've promised I would get awesome results on the BMW hard clear coat.
But you know how it is, until I can't test it, I will not know. I may have to wait until Friday.
Any advice on this product?
Click to expand...

2.01 is very mild. You are chasing RIDS, be happy you got the swirls out, its better having more paint than no RID. A professional is not one who cuts but one who knows when not to cut.
 
Linneo said:
Ok, I've been on my local shop today.
I couldn't find what you all guys advised me to use.
I ended up buying the Koch Chemie M2.01 "Hochglanz-Antihologramm-Politur" and a Flexipads Microfibre Pad "Finishing GRIP" for medium and hard paints.
They've promised I would get awesome results on the BMW hard clear coat.
But you know how it is, until I can't test it, I will not know. I may have to wait until Friday.
Any advice on this product?
Click to expand...

I have that polish and it's a great finishing polish that really can get you some awesome gloss. Go back and see if they have koch chemie h8.02 which is a heavy compound. And get maybe a medium polishing pad to use with m2.01 after h8.02 with the mf pad. They have a medium cut polish also and it's with a 5 in the start. Since you have a hard clearcoat you might need a little more aggressive finishing pad than the least cutting they have.
 
SWETM said:
I have that polish and it's a great finishing polish that really can get you some awesome gloss. Go back and see if they have koch chemie h8.02 which is a heavy compound. And get maybe a medium polishing pad to use with m2.01 after h8.02 with the mf pad. They have a medium cut polish also and it's with a 5 in the start. Since you have a hard clearcoat you might need a little more aggressive finishing pad than the least cutting they have.
Click to expand...
You were right. It didn't made it any better than the HD Adapt.
I will have to try a more cutting compound. I don't know if jump straight to the H8.02 or maybe try something lighter first, like the H7.01 or even F5.01.

And regarding what Ronin47 said, I agree, but I don't think I'm dealing with RIDS here. I'm pretty sure it's swirls. I can't get them to show in the pictures but in plain sight they look like swirls.
If I can get rid of the swirls I can live with RIDS.


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Hello again.
I got a new Flexipads "Cutting" microfiber pad and made a new test spot.
This time I choose to work on a rear fender, since it's easier to take better pictures from that angle.

I've managed to remove almost all swirls and only RIDS remain.
The paint color has improved a lot.
This car is not a DD and I'll probably keep it for many years.

I've measured the paint thickness and it's at an avarage of 164 microns. Sounds good for a BMW paint.

My question now is if I should go for a better cut or this far is good enough.


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