Paint Polishing for Opti-Coat 2.0

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The Critic

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Greetings,

I am getting ready to apply OC 2.0 on my daily driver. This car sits outside 24/7, has a ton of miles (75k+ for a 2011), but has been maintained regularly since new.

Obviously, I'd like to polish the paint prior to applying OC 2.0. The part I am struggling with, is the level of correction to attain. While I understand that it is a personal preference, I would like to hear your advice on how you would normally advise your clients in this case.

In preparation, I did a test panel (or two) tonight with the following findings.

Roof: Flex 3401, M205, LC orange pad. 3 passes at speed 5 with moderate pressure, 1 pass at speed 4 with no pressure. 70-80% correction, but a couple deep rids and some nasty water etching remains. I have some FG400 on the way, but I have concerns about compounding as the paint measures in the 60-70 micron range. The nasty water etching is quite noticeable from a distance...

Door panels and rear quarters: Flex 3401, M205, LC Orange pad. 3 passes at speed 5 with moderate pressure, 1 pass at speed 4 with no pressure. 90%+ correction. No concerns with paint thickness here (110+ microns).

The thought of apply Opti-Coat to less than perfect paint sounds a bit un-kosher, but then again, this is a daily driver. What do you guys think?

Thanks.
 
Do what makes you happy... if the remaining defects will literally drive you nuts, then you need to fix them. If you are truly at peace knowing that this is a DD and will be subject to even more damage in the future, than I would say go with a one-step.

If you wanted to try do an experiment, you could measure an area where the paint is thicker (on the sides), compound it, take readings and note the difference, polish it, take readings and note the difference... and then note the net change in thickness (probably best to take A LOT of readings over a 2x2 area and average them?) and see if you feel comfortable removing that amount of material from the thinner areas as well. My wife's mazda ranged about 70-80 microns, but it was so bad I had no choice but to do a 2 step correction on it with FG400 on an orange light cutting pad followed by M205 on a black pad (I think? It's been a while)... anyways, I noticed about 4-6 microns of material being removed, but the paint was then coated and I haven't worried about it since.

What type of car and what color car are you working with? If it is a lighter colored vehicle with average paint (in terms of hardness) you may be able to do a one-step with just FG400 on a polishing or light cutting pad.
 
No problem, if it save you time and less work. Go for it, I optic coat a 90% correction car before because I just need to protect it from future scratches and I didn't want to spend all day correction to 100%. Plus it's pretty rare that people say oh swirls! I see swirls!. Some may think if you're going to do it might as well 100% it. But I already thought it through and I did not want to 100% it. So go for it but at least get to 90% correction. If you car is silver even better.
 
I say be patient and wait for the fg400... then try it.. will definitely help on the rids and its easy to work with...

you sound quite particular and you realize that whatever the final prep looks like will be locked in by the opticoat... so I'd say do it all the way to full correction and maintain...

I think you will be MUCH happier if you keep the vehicle 2 years or more


:props:
 
zmcgovern45 said:
What type of car and what color car are you working with? If it is a lighter colored vehicle with average paint (in terms of hardness) you may be able to do a one-step with just FG400 on a polishing or light cutting pad.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It is a 2011 Prius with the Winter Gray Metallic paint. The metallic flake is not very apparent in this color, so I basically consider it to be a medium gray.


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Toyota paint tends to be on the softer side... I would probably do FG400 on a light cutting pad followed by Sonax Perfect Finish on a black finishing pad (or white polishing pad)... or something similar.

As always, perform adequate testing prior to settling on a product/pad combo.
 
zmcgovern45 said:
Toyota paint tends to be on the softer side... I would probably do FG400 on a light cutting pad followed by Sonax Perfect Finish on a black finishing pad (or white polishing pad)... or something similar.

As always, perform adequate testing prior to settling on a product/pad combo.
Click to expand...

Got it. I was quite surprised by how much correction I got from the M205/LC orange combo, so the paint must be quite soft.

I do have HD Polish and was actually meaning to try it out last night, but left it at home. So, I'll use that to follow up. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm trying to go for the strategy that makes sense. I'm trying to remove as little clear as possible while maximizing correction. Really not trying to get that last 10-15% improvement at the expense of compounding.


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The Critic said:
Got it. I was quite surprised by how much correction I got from the M205/LC orange combo, so the paint must be quite soft.

I do have HD Polish and was actually meaning to try it out last night, but left it at home. So, I'll use that to follow up. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm trying to go for the strategy that makes sense. I'm trying to remove as little clear as possible while maximizing correction. Really not trying to get that last 10-15% improvement at the expense of compounding.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
Click to expand...

M205 / LC orange is one of my favorite combos for a one-stage correction. It works very well.
 
The Critic said:
I have some FG400 on the way, but I have concerns about compounding as the paint measures in the 60-70 micron range.
Click to expand...

Be EXTREMELY careful compounding with such low PTG readings!!! I seriously doubt I would do any compounding if these are accurate readings. My cutoff point for compounding is generally this. BE Careful!
 
Here's an update.

I was able to do the entire left side of the vehicle tonight: fender, both doors, pillars and quarter panel.

Here were some interesting findings. HD Polish and a LC orange pad, 4 passes @ speed 5, would cut through almost all the defects. However, the finish achieved was not glossy. Going over the same area with a Uber green pad yielded a very glossy finish. Meguiars Yellow Soft Buff 2.0 pads seemed to be decent, but the Uber green still gave a better finish.

Per Dark Horse's advice, I'm going to leave the roof alone.
 
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