When to choose a more aggressive method

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krisp37

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After getting a little experience under my belt by helping friends and family members bring new life to their cars, I realize that I'd been reaching more for the aggressive approach to save myself time. At one point I'd even used a surbuf pad on a friends black Z. I'm quickly learning that I will more than likely have to start with something like a MF cutting pad / D300 rather than say a LC Orange pad / TSR combo.

So I began to wonder...am I too quick to jump the gun? I honestly can't see myself doing more than 6-8 passes on a section, and 8 is pushing it. I'm curious to hear what members of this forum consider too many passes before stepping up to something more aggressive.
 
You should always use the least aggressive polish. Over time you kinda know what polish you use, but if 205 will take the scratches out why use 105?
 
I've been surprised at times at the results gained from a less aggressive approach. Most people just want a glossy paint job and never see the scratches and swirls anyway so why jump right to an aggressive approach?

Now if the aim is near 100% correction the less aggressive approach rarely suffices in order to get the job done in a timely manner but I still always try it first because if it does work out I have just saved the time of doing an entire compounding step.
 
Agree, most of the time its just 205 and a white pad to take the layer of crap off and then LSP and some defects come out and some dont. They just want, and pay for, the shine.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. :) Don't get me wrong I understand and practice "the least aggressive approach" first, but assuming I'm compounding and want to get the car as defect free as possible, how many passes would you consider being too much before stepping it up? 6? 8? 12+?
 
Myself, if 5 passes doesnt cut it then I move up to more agressive compound.
 
With a PC, you might need around 6 passes to fully break down something like TSR.
 
I think it depends what you are going for. If you are doing a correction job you need to figure out what the customer is willing to pay for and what they want out of the job. If they are paying for a one step just to clean up their daily driver I think less aggressive is fine because most people would rather have a very shiny car with a few swirls than a car with no swirls but heavy buffer haze.

On the other hand if they are paying for a two step/full correction you obviously need to step up to whatever takes out most, if not all, of the defects. That being said you should still start off with the least aggressive combo.

You should get a feel for cars as you do more of them to what will work and what won't. When I look at a car I can make a good guess as to what combo will work, then I take a step down from that combo and try that first. So say I think M105 on a Surbuf is needed. I will do a test spot with SIP on an orange pad, or M105 on a orange pad to see what it does. Sometimes it turns out to work perfectly, and sometimes it doesn't. Doing a test spot is really the only way to figure out what combo you need for a specific job.

All that said, if it's taking you more than 5-6 passes to get the results you want, then it might be time to step up your combo.
 
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