Flex 3401 First time & Burning backplates

[Motogoon]

Got my flex in and went to work today on my DD. The paint is in great shape just tons of swirls. While doing the hood i noticed smoke!!! and noticed it was the backing plate totally melting. I did not read anywhere about oiling the ring which i did next and put the extra plate i bought on. Im hoping flex will replace the plate and gears which all are melted.

Power: I was having a hard time learning how to control this thing compared to my GG 6" its a little tuff and im not sure where the trick lies. I also didnt remove close to all the swirls and im not sure why i did use pressure.

Lastly are my 5.5 pads from the GG 6" garbage or can they be used on the flex? what plate would i need i thought i needed the 5.5 but i think i need a 5 which they don't make correct?

Thanks for any help

 

[Tundra_10]

I would contact whoever you bought the flex from and have them replace the unit. oiling the felt ring should not have been the issue. that is just what gets recommended from users, not from flex. otherwise it would be done from the factory like that. sorry about your luck. you will probably need a new plate for those smaller pads. there are new plates offered for the flex that will allow it to use the smaller pads which will work just fine on the flex.

 

[Danube]

Gears melted? It must be something seriously wrong with the unit melting the gears at the first use.

How much pressure did you apply?

 

[Motogoon]

I just got the kit from auto geek last week. And yeah the oiling of the ring i feel should NOT BE AN ISSUE you have to figure out like this. The plate melted bad i couldn't figure out why the heck it was smoking i thought i burnt the paint thank god i bought an extra plate even though i bought it because i thought it was different then the stock plate but exact same size. So now what im out of a machine till i get the new one good thing my griots isnt gone shame that the 400.00 polisher cant hold up first day compared to the 130.00 lifetime warranty polisher

 

[Motogoon]

That outer ring is supposed to be shiny and no I wasn't jamming on the thing deff used pressure but not an animal with it

 

[Tundra_10]

Im sure this isnt the first but since I have been coming on this site (October) this is the first issue I have seen with a flex. I have read numerous with the griots and pc. Not saying they are bad machines but am implying that as far as reliability the flex has a much better track record. Unfortunately anything mechanical is prone to fail prematurely. I wouldn't discredit the flex just yet.

From your pictures it looks like the backing plate was too tight against the machine thus probably causing the motor to strain and smoke. Furthermore the power of the machine just chewed through the gears.
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[Motogoon]

I understand the plate being to tight but I pulled this out of the box and went to work factory should have it set right!