Issue with black plastic B-pillars

[jcarson112]

You may have seen an earlier thread where I had an issue with these pillars. I have XMT polishes 1-3 and 360. I also have CCS 5.5' orange, white, grey, and blue pads.

The car is a 2010 VW GTI. In my experience every GTI I've come across has the soft b-pillar issue.

Today I came through again and tried a few different product/pad combinations. Any time I used a white pad the marring usually yielded results which had many cob-web like micromarring like in the first picture below. This lead me to believe that the white polishing pad was too harsh for the plastic surface.

I then stepped the pad down to a grey finishing pad. I tried both 360 and XMT1 but ultimately settled with Meg's PlastX. The 360 gave no results what-so-ever, and the XMT1 did give fairly good results but did seem to leave a bit more marring than what I was able to achieve with the plastiX. The second picture below shows the results after two or three times of making 6 passes over the pillars at slow speed with moderate pressure.

My issue is that I cant seem to get a marr free finish no matter what I use. I would try some new products but I don't have any funds that I can spare (yes even OTC Megs compounds).

So then my questions are, should I just appreciate the results I've been able to achieve or is there a way (with the products I have) to get rid of the rest of the remaining marring on the surface of the pillar covers?

Thanks in advance.


Before (after XMT#1 and white CCS during the weekend):

After 2 sessions of 6 passes with plastiX:

 

[jcarson112]

Keep in mind this is all that I could capture with the camera's flash and a flash-light as the wonderful Northwest was not kind enough to let the sun shine today.

 

[TLMitchell]

So then my questions are, should I just appreciate the results I've been able to achieve or is there a way (with the products I have) to get rid of the rest of the remaining marring on the surface of the pillar covers?

I'd give it a try by hand with a soft foam applicator and the finest polishes you have. I've had similar problems on soft surfaces and found I was getting rotational micromarring with a variety of pads and chemicals. I ended up getting the best results finishing by hand once the major defects were corrected. Good luck. :xyxthumbs:

TL

 

[04Si]

I also have a 2010 GTI. Just bought it last month. Mine is Carbon Silver. Even when I picked my car up at the dealer these B pillars were all scratched just from their weekly wash and wipe downs.

I used my Flex with white/grey pad and Wolfgang duo swirl remover/finishing glaze. Topped with WG fuzion.

Looks like glass.

 

[jcarson112]

I get the feeling that either the XMT line is hard to work with (i.e. I don't know use the brand well). It looks like the polishes don't get worked long enough (sandpaper-esque look) even after 3-4 mins.

Hopefully some others will have some suggestions. This recent issue has left me second-guessing my ability to correct paint as of late.

 

[TornadoRed]

I've been planning my detail for while and was having second thoughts about doing anything with my b-pillars after reading this. Well today I finally hit my GTI with some polish and tackled the b-pillars last.
I used Griot's Machine Polish 4 with a 4" hydro tech crimson pad with my Griot's ROP on speed 5. That's about as least aggressive as you can get. I started with the passenger side, so if mine came out like yours, at least I would have to look at it every time I got in the car. I worked the hell out of the polish until I thought it was done and then I did one more pass. I carefully wiped away the polish and loved what I saw. I wish I took pictures. It got rid of the light swirls but some deeper swirls were still there. I repeated another round like I did before and they were almost like mirrors. Not perfect but I was very pleased.
It was the best part of my detail today because the machine polish 4 didn't even tough the swirls in my paint (which I was kind of expecting). lol