First time detail... polishing. Whole car, or just what needs it?

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bcsteeve

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I picked up a 2 year old car that has - in my estimation - very poor condition paint for its age. There are rock chips that I realize I can't do anything about other than paint, but there are also many fine (and not so fine) scratches. I recently purchased a porter cable DA on the cheap, went shopping for pads, mediums, etc. Yesterday I washed the car, today I finished clay barring it. Now (I think) I'm ready to polish.

Any tips in general are appreciated, but specifically I'm asking if I should be doing every square inch of paint, or just the parts where I can see problems?

Thanks.
 
Sounds like the car is in need of a resto so I would do the entire car to get it all in good shape. Then later on down the road you can spot polish if needed.
 
Alright, now what am I doing wrong?

I've got a long but very fine scratch that's bothered me, so I thought I'd start there. By "fine", I mean it feels perfectly smooth to my touch. I certainly can't catch a nail on it at all, and if I close my eyes and feel with my finger/nail I couldn't tell where it was.

I just used Meguiar's Ultimate Compound on a Chemical Guy's orange Logic Quantum pad with a Porter Cable 7424XP. I spread the product quickly at speed 1 then went slowly at speed 5 for about 2 minutes. Scratch still there. I can't say it is noticeably diminished at all.

Do I need more product?
Does it just take longer?
Do I need more pressure?
Am I just over-estimating what I can expect? I mean, if little scratches like this can't come out them I'm starting to question the whole point of this expense and exercise.
 
PC lacks power, so crank it up to speed 6. Hope you don't have a 6" backing plate, a 5" will work much better. For spot buffing (removing scratches) get a 3.5" backing plate with a good compound and that should take care of the problem areas.
 
What car do you have?
Have you done a mark on the backing plate with a different color than the backing plate so you can see if it is spinning?
If you have done this and it's not correcting it you may have a really hard clearcoat. And need a pad with more cut in it. How much compound are haveing on the pad? And what size is the area you are working on? A picture would help a lot to help you.
 
It is a Tesla Model S.

I have not done a mark, but I can see it spinning. The area I was talking about is about a foot by six inches. I put 4 pea sized blobs of compound on the pad. I'll add a photo in a few minutes.
 
Pfft... nevermind. Apparently my photography skills are worse than my detailing skills, because I can't get a photo of the scratch. I took several pictures and you'd swear there's no scratch, but I can see it in person.
 
I hope there anyone else with experience of the hardness of the Tesla clearcoat and can share. That is the amount of compound to use in 2×2 area so if you are possible to polish a large area so do so. The quantums are 1" wider than the backing plate and are you using the 6" backing plate that can do that the polisher bogs down and not spinning fast enough. The eye can trick you so you think it's spinning so it's really helpfull to mark the backing plate. Most of the experienced do so also and mostly because so you see the plate spinning fast enough to correct the most. I do so and it's really helpfull for me. If the clearcoat is hard you might invest in a microfiber cutting disc and a 5" backing plate. You can do a test spot with a 2×2 some where else and see if you can get some correction on some swirls. Work the spot side to side and up and down. Even on the scratch you have and so for 4-6 passes and wipe of and have it inspected with a good light.
 
I can not speak for Tesla but I had a similar hard time removing some light scratches on a Mercedes. I finally got them out with a meguairs mf cutting pad and menzerna 400.


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Thanks for the tip about marking the backing plate. I *thought* I could see it turning, but after marking I now see how easy it is to stop it from spinning. I hit it again and I think it has diminished the appearance at least a little. I'll do a few more passes today.
 
bcsteeve said:
Thanks for the tip about marking the backing plate. I *thought* I could see it turning, but after marking I now see how easy it is to stop it from spinning. I hit it again and I think it has diminished the appearance at least a little. I'll do a few more passes today.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that you are using a 6" bp. Do yourself a favor and get a 5" and 3.5" bp with some appropriate pads. It will make your life so much easier.
 
Agree with others, a PC trying to rotate 6.5” thick pads is a burden to try and keep rotation.
 
No, I'm using a 5 inch with chemical Brothers quantum pass... 5.5 inch I think they were sold as.
 
Don’t get frustrated. These guys will get you there. I agree with one of the previous posts. Take a sharpie and make I line on your backing plate so you can see it spin. I’m a new weekend diy guy with apoerter cable and these guys have helped a lot. I have gotten a ton better. What compound are you using?
 
You could compromise. At a minimum, you should go over your entire surface with a fine grade polish. This gives you the most shine, you could quit there. Then you could see if any deeper swirls bother you, and spot polish those areas.
 
I ended up doing the opposite. I spot polished the worst spots with meguiars ultimate compound and the orange pad... although that seemed to do very little... then I did the whole car with a white pad and ultimate polish... which also seemed to do very little. That took a LONG time, and I can't say it was worth the time, effort, or expense.

The Sharpie tip helped me at least know when it was spinning, so I'm glad I came here. I don't know if I'm just expecting too much and these scratches that I would call minor are just too deep for correction, or if this clear coat is too hard (but then how all the scratches in the first place?), or I made a mistake with the products or I just suck.

But it is super clean :). And now I know it has a coat of wax. So I guess I'm happy.
 
Keep in mind you'll explore more products and what not as well and you'll find a levelling fluid and pad combination that works for you. I would suggest having a lot of orange pads and white polishing pads, maybe a few microfibre cutting pads for spot compounding of tough spots. I have a good one step compound, a few good finishing polishes for different things and a good heavy cutting one I pair with mf pads for heavy spot conpounding.
 
I dunno... I kind of think I'll cut this habit short before I get too far in :) The amount of effort I put into that, I don't think I'll be too inclined to just go try random products. It seems, from what I read, by the time I find something that "works for me", it probably isn't even about the product, but rather the practice and technique that I eventually developed.I did a lot of research and decided on what I decided on based on the best information I could pull together combined with what I was willing to spend and what was available and made sense to me. I feel it *should* have worked. Whatever reasons that it didn't... I'm not about to go on an expensive wild goose chase. The car looks better than it did the day I got it. The regret I have is that the vast majority of the improvements came from $40 worth of product and the other $250 I shouldn't have bothered with.

My advice to my past self: Good car soap, clay bar, lots of quick detailer, wax and a Costco pack of micro fiber towels. Skip the DA, pads, compound, polish, various types of expensive towels, etc.

But who knows... when its time to try this again, we'll see. For now, I'm reservedly satisfied. :)
 
Some will and some won't, be satisfied that is.
 
There are many videos on Youtube about polishing. Watch a few and you might catch why you are not getting the results you want.

As a rule of thumb, compound is great to remove swirls and very fine scratches. If you can see a scratch stand out, this is much more difficult to remove. Usually you need to wet sand and I would not suggest you try unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Now, regarding the polishing not doing anything, here are a few tricks I can give you:


1) You need to apply pressure with your machine. The PC is rather weak, so you need to make sure to engage the abbrasives in the polish with the paint. You should be putting about 15 pounds of pressure on the machine, try it with a scale to know how much that actually is.

2) Take your time. Most begginners move the machine super fast on the surface, you want to be moving at a speed of about 1 inch per second. So if you are working a 2 foot by 2 foot area (as you should) that mean moving from one side of your work area to the other side should take about 20 seconds. Meg's Ultimate Compound and Polish are very good products. They have long working time and you can get excellent result if you use them correctly.

3) When you clean up the polishing residues, try to use an alcohol based product to help remove the polishing cream. Windex can be used if you have nothing else. With will help prevent scratching the surface with your towel.
 
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