new car: polish before seal, dumb idea?

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kiteman

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picked up a new car and the dealer didn't touch it, and i even looked at the paint and it looked to be in good condition. i didn't inspect it superbly, but i really didn't notice any swirls or marring of any kind.

i've had a PC forever and my natural instinct was to use a light polish and then seal it, even though the polish wasn't necessary from a paint correction standpoint. i thought/assumed the sealant would bond better with properly prepped paint and that's why i added the step. was i wrong in thinking that?

i used optimum spray polish (light) and followed up with opti-seal. it looks good now but i actually noticed a couple of very light swirls. so light though that i don't think it is worth going over with a PC again to correct right now. then again i didn't inspect the paint thoroughly prior to the polish step, so the marring could have been there before. however it got me worrying i added the polish step unnecessarily and in that step i actually lightly scratched the paint. so i'm trying to figure out if i goofed or not.

maybe for discussion more than advice, did my car need that polish or should i have skipped the step and headed directly towards the OS? do you think the optimum spray polish is a light enough product where i shouldn't worry about the fact that i did use this step anyway?
 
If you still see swirls, then yes it needed polishing

Fix it in the Spring
 
Are you sure the dealer didn't touch it? They like to run them through the swirl-o-matic then buff them with some glaze so they look ok until you wash them.

My last new car looked good when I picked it up but this is what it looked like after washing:

IMG_0333_resize.JPG
 
Was the surface smooth? did you clay it prior to polishing?

Could be that the pad picked up some bonded contaminants and caused a few swirls while polishing!
 
i ordered the car, plastic was still on when i picked it up. no touching of the car by the dealer. i did the baggie test--no clay was needed. you are right though there could have been one small contaminant that was picked up. though it was one of the first body panels i did, and all the panels thereafter were fine still using the same polishing pad/MF towels. you'd think it would have scratched another panel that followed...

so do you guys think the polish was even necessary/beneficial, or should i have gone right to OS?
 
kiteman said:
dealer did not touch it as far as i know. i am well aware of what swirling looks like and i was very pleased at how good it looked. i ordered the car...the plastic was still on it when i picked it up.
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Good man! Sorry you picked up some swirls after.

Man, you are the king of the Ninja-edit...you must have changed your post 4 times while I was trying to respond.

kiteman said:
so do you guys think the polish was even necessary/beneficial, or should i have gone right to OS?
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Yes, it was a good idea to do some prep--whether you needed an abrasive polish to do that is another story.
 
hehe, sorry for the edit. i have a tendency to write more than i should, then i go back and edit it to make it less reading for the intended audience :)

do you think the hyper polish is all that abrasive? i thought it is very light so i hope that it did not take too much clear coat off.
 
kiteman said:
do you think the hyper polish is all that abrasive? i thought it is very light so i hope that it did not take too much clear coat off.
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Nah, you didn't take hardly anything off. It's just a good cleaning like OPC, Iron-X, FK Decon might have been the right choice.
 
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