So yesterday I finally got around to doing some work on the wife's car, a black 2016 Lincoln MKC which has, admittedly, been neglected for quite a while. Pretty heavy swirling, not much RDS and a few stubborn water spots. Goal was not show-level correction as this is a daily and will be beat up before long anyway, so I went with McKees 360 as a quick paint cleaner/light polish and mainly to leave behind the sealant protection as there was nothing on this paint protection wise. No pics as unfortunately by the time I finished hustling my way around the car it was too dark to get anything good.
For those of you that don't know, this is what an MKC is. Essentially a lincoln-ized ford escape. The paint is black velvet which is black with a very, very sparse silver/blue flake or pearl in it.
First, I'm going to talk about the Griot's 3" machine and the boss pads. I'll start by saying that without a 3" machine, with the curves and complexities on this vehicle I would have been pretty well screwed. There's no way you're getting a 5" pad in a lot of these spaces. Hell, I couldn't get even a 3" pad into some spots (mainly around the side mirrors, a rotary with extension would be ideal there). There's a little flat 'plateau' on the top of each front fender, that meets at basically 90 degrees to the downturn on the sides of the hood. Then you have a complex angle/curve at the base of the A pillar, you have the belt line at the bottom of the doors that's 3" flat then has about an inch of inward turn on the top before you get to the flat door panels, then above the door handles there's another body line that protrudes further the more you get to the rear of the car, which would only be able to be done by 3" machines. Additionally, the front bumper is pretty intricate, as is the area below the rear window on the hatch, and the flat top of the rear bumper that is exposed once the hatch is opened.
I would ideally have gotten either the Zentool or Rupes mini, but couldn't justify the expense. Add to that the AG BOSS combo kit, with pads and a few towels as well as a carry bag at less than half the cost of the Rupes, and I pulled the trigger. I'm sure the Rupes has a lot more correction ability, but this suits me for now. If I ever end up in a situation where I have to buy the Rupes mini to replace this one, it will be a great problem to have because it will mean I'm doing WAY more cars than I am now!
To work this car I used a method I picked up from Jim White of WhiteDetails over in the UK, wherein I started with the 3" machine on all the areas that only it would work, cutting in some of the edges and things I didn't want to get the big machine up against, as well as the bumpers. That left the hood, larger roof panels, flats of the door panels to be done with my MT300. The GG3, I saw a review that said it's basically useless if it's not on Speed 6 (top speed). I have to agree with that, it stalls very easily below this speed setting. In some preliminary testing with 360 and the yellow BOSS pad I wasn't thrilled with the result. For this job I stepped up to the orange correcting pad. This black paint was harder than I expected, but even so the little GG3 with 360 and orange pad combo did a reasonable job of removing the lighter defects and left behind a very smooth finish. The sealant in 360 is a little more 'grabby' than I'm used to from the likes of my preferred sealant which is Menzerna/Jescar PowerLock. I can certainly imagine that the BOSS 3" pad system would work just fine with any compound/polish combo such as M205, FG400 etc. I think I may convert to the lake country thinpro system for my cutting/polishing needs and then stay with the bigger CCS pads for LSP/waxing duty, and since there are both 3.5" and 5.5" variants for both my machines, it's a logical choice. I imagine the little machine will do very well with the LC Thinpros.
The boss pad system IMO is decent if you plan to stick with the griot's products, which I do not.
Now as far as 360 goes, the product is just awesome. Super long work time, it'll go as long as you want to go even hammering on it with my MT300 at higher speed and slightly heavier than normal pressure. Wipes off with ease, smells better than others, all the stuff you've heard about it before. I'm hoping to be able to comment on its longevity up here in New England where it's just a couple months away from getting beat on, but I have a feeling it'll be up to the job for at least a few months. Hopefully my ONR will be arriving soon so I can start trying that out, which I'm anticipating should help the longevity of my LSPs on both vehicles.
I'm not sure the real world correcting ability of 360, as I haven't really put it to the test. It definitely seemed to work better with the more aggressive 3" orange pad over the yellow pad on this somewhat harder lincoln paint. For a production buff, as I did on this car, it's hard to beat 360. I have yet to try HD Speed but, pending the ultimate test (direct sunlight check), I have no reason to not stick with 360.
All in all I think that this car will eventually be seeing a full 2 step correction prior to being turned in or traded in (leased vehicle) just to help my case a bit as she's already chewed up a LOT of the mileage. But for now the 360 should do what I need it to do.
So, kudos to Griot's on the 3" machine (hard to beat at it's price point) and McKee's for another outstanding product. I find myself picking up more and more of their line as time goes on.
For those of you that don't know, this is what an MKC is. Essentially a lincoln-ized ford escape. The paint is black velvet which is black with a very, very sparse silver/blue flake or pearl in it.
First, I'm going to talk about the Griot's 3" machine and the boss pads. I'll start by saying that without a 3" machine, with the curves and complexities on this vehicle I would have been pretty well screwed. There's no way you're getting a 5" pad in a lot of these spaces. Hell, I couldn't get even a 3" pad into some spots (mainly around the side mirrors, a rotary with extension would be ideal there). There's a little flat 'plateau' on the top of each front fender, that meets at basically 90 degrees to the downturn on the sides of the hood. Then you have a complex angle/curve at the base of the A pillar, you have the belt line at the bottom of the doors that's 3" flat then has about an inch of inward turn on the top before you get to the flat door panels, then above the door handles there's another body line that protrudes further the more you get to the rear of the car, which would only be able to be done by 3" machines. Additionally, the front bumper is pretty intricate, as is the area below the rear window on the hatch, and the flat top of the rear bumper that is exposed once the hatch is opened.
I would ideally have gotten either the Zentool or Rupes mini, but couldn't justify the expense. Add to that the AG BOSS combo kit, with pads and a few towels as well as a carry bag at less than half the cost of the Rupes, and I pulled the trigger. I'm sure the Rupes has a lot more correction ability, but this suits me for now. If I ever end up in a situation where I have to buy the Rupes mini to replace this one, it will be a great problem to have because it will mean I'm doing WAY more cars than I am now!
To work this car I used a method I picked up from Jim White of WhiteDetails over in the UK, wherein I started with the 3" machine on all the areas that only it would work, cutting in some of the edges and things I didn't want to get the big machine up against, as well as the bumpers. That left the hood, larger roof panels, flats of the door panels to be done with my MT300. The GG3, I saw a review that said it's basically useless if it's not on Speed 6 (top speed). I have to agree with that, it stalls very easily below this speed setting. In some preliminary testing with 360 and the yellow BOSS pad I wasn't thrilled with the result. For this job I stepped up to the orange correcting pad. This black paint was harder than I expected, but even so the little GG3 with 360 and orange pad combo did a reasonable job of removing the lighter defects and left behind a very smooth finish. The sealant in 360 is a little more 'grabby' than I'm used to from the likes of my preferred sealant which is Menzerna/Jescar PowerLock. I can certainly imagine that the BOSS 3" pad system would work just fine with any compound/polish combo such as M205, FG400 etc. I think I may convert to the lake country thinpro system for my cutting/polishing needs and then stay with the bigger CCS pads for LSP/waxing duty, and since there are both 3.5" and 5.5" variants for both my machines, it's a logical choice. I imagine the little machine will do very well with the LC Thinpros.
The boss pad system IMO is decent if you plan to stick with the griot's products, which I do not.
Now as far as 360 goes, the product is just awesome. Super long work time, it'll go as long as you want to go even hammering on it with my MT300 at higher speed and slightly heavier than normal pressure. Wipes off with ease, smells better than others, all the stuff you've heard about it before. I'm hoping to be able to comment on its longevity up here in New England where it's just a couple months away from getting beat on, but I have a feeling it'll be up to the job for at least a few months. Hopefully my ONR will be arriving soon so I can start trying that out, which I'm anticipating should help the longevity of my LSPs on both vehicles.
I'm not sure the real world correcting ability of 360, as I haven't really put it to the test. It definitely seemed to work better with the more aggressive 3" orange pad over the yellow pad on this somewhat harder lincoln paint. For a production buff, as I did on this car, it's hard to beat 360. I have yet to try HD Speed but, pending the ultimate test (direct sunlight check), I have no reason to not stick with 360.
All in all I think that this car will eventually be seeing a full 2 step correction prior to being turned in or traded in (leased vehicle) just to help my case a bit as she's already chewed up a LOT of the mileage. But for now the 360 should do what I need it to do.
So, kudos to Griot's on the 3" machine (hard to beat at it's price point) and McKee's for another outstanding product. I find myself picking up more and more of their line as time goes on.
