My first whole car... 2006 Nissan Maxima

[BoostedBeaver]

Whelp, I purchase a Makita rotary a few years back that I used to correct some minor scratches and learn the craft of wetsanding but this adventure is utilizing a DA for the first time.

I have been lurking in the shadows for the past few years picking up little things here and there. I'm still pretty new to posting here but I thought I would share some of my most recent work.

It started out with my wife getting me a Porter Cable 7424 for Christmas :xyxthumbs: It came with a few pads and a ton of goodies from Autogeek. (Sorry no picture)

On to the work..... We bought this car in 2008 with about 20,000 miles on it. Since then, it has received the occasional wash with various products, dish soaps, local car washes etc. The car has never been clayed while in my possession and has never seen wax to my knowledge.

Here are the before pictures and its been about a month or two since the last wash.

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We moved on to wash the car with the two bucket method using some Meguiars Car Wash, Wheel cleaner and Tire Shine. Of course there where various soft bristle brushes and a wash mitt involved too. Yea Yea, thats a new pack of cheap Microfibers to get the dirty nasty stuff. Gotta save those expensive towels for the "cleaner" jobs

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Just a quick wash was a decent improvement.

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Next I clayed the entire car. Let me say that this paint was not cared for over the last 8 years and it showed during this process. I used the Meguiars Clay Bar kit (consumer brand off the Walmart shelf) to accomplish this process. Again the improvements were notable.

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At this point, she is the cleanest she has been in years but I'm just getting to the part where I use my new tool

Here are some of the below surface paint defects I plan to remove/enhance.

Entrance Lip into trunk

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Scratches around the door handle

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Various other scratches along the body of the car

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Lastly, this car is absolutely covered in Swirls that I would love to remove

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Other problems include etched in water spots, bird droppings and a few other odds and ends. I pulled out the Porter Cable 7424 and I was off to the races.

Ambient temp was 53 degrees. Little wind was present.

I started with a very mild Meguiars Cleaner Wax utilizing a Orange Cutting pad and a White Polishing Pad spreading on 2 and working around speed 5 on the hood just to see what it would accomplish. This Product brought out a slightly deeper shine but the Swirl party was still in full swing on the hood.

I then moved on to some clean pads and Meguiars number 83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish. I started using another Orange cutting pad spreading on 2 and working at 5 on approximately a 20 x 20 area. This product quickly gummed up the pad and began to dust. It was also drying prematurely. I was trying to work the product for 6 - 8 section passes but the product was dusting and drying by the end of section pass number 3. I tried cleaning the pad on the fly using more product and then using less.

"FAST FORWARD" after some online reading, there was probably to much product present in/on the pad which was likely causing my issues. It could also be the dry 10 year old paint but we shall see.

"Rewind" I was able to accomplish working the product for a short time over a section of the hood. Since the product was not working as intended and I inspected the section that was worked for results. While this product did improve the finish, swirl marks where still present.

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I knew that a cold front was coming through later that day so I decided to protect the newly clayed paint utilizing some Meguiars #26 Yellow Wax. This was applied using the DA with a red jeweling pad on speed 3 or so making 4-5 quick section passes. I then allowed it to dry to a haze and buffed it off with a quality MF towel.

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Overall, I am extremely pleased with the finish I was able to obtain. I still have a lot of correction work to do but this gives me some protection over the winter.

Once the weather breaks in a few months, I plan to give the M83 another shot. Next in line will be Scratch X 2.0 or Ultimate Compound on a test spot and see where that leaves me. As a last result, I have a bottle of M105 but I have hope that some of these other products will be able to accomplish the task at hand using the right Pad, Hand Speed and DA working speed.

If you have any suggestions or comments, I'm all ears. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

[Sicoupe]

Nice job! Thanks for sharing.

 

[ScottH]

You made some noticeable improvements which you should be proud of and feel good about. The car looks much better and you learned a lot - win/win.

FWIW: Achieving perfection the very first time with your DA isn't always realistic. Keep your pads clean, watch how much product you use - keeping in mind too much product is often counterproductive. If you are only getting 3 section passes and then dusting, go ahead and finish the 3rd pass, wipe area clean with clean MF, and then do another 3 passes with new product and clean pad. I've done this many a time and gotten great results.

 

[Paul A.]

I agree with Scott...very noticeable improvements and be proud my friend. You did that! My guess is both of the products you tried may not be enough to bite off that tiny amount of clear to level those scratches. However you did get some good time with the PC and can zero in just the right cut later. I like your idea of getting an LSP on it for the season coming up.

Whenever i cut with my PC and foam pads i spin it all the way up to 6 and crush the pad with just enough downward pressure to keep it spinning. Slow, overlapping passes on a small area and you might see a difference. And don't oversaturate the pad after it is initially primed with product. Just a couple to a few pea sized dots for each new section after you clean on the fly.

Again, though, the results look awesome in the photos! Congrats.

 

[VeloNYC]

It started out with my wife getting me a Porter Cable 7424 for Christmas It came with a few pads and a ton of goodies from Autogeek. (Sorry no picture)

:dblthumb2: P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S :dblthumb2:

 

[BoostedBeaver]

Thanks for all of the comments. Im just glad to be able to share a little something.

Puckman, I was thinking that the products I used just didn’t have the characteristics I needed to complete the job correctly. I was just toying around with the “lightest” combos I had to see what would work.

Thanks again for all of the input. Below are some beading pictures of the M26 after being applied for a week. This was light rain overnight.

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