Where did I go wrong?

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BostonStang

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One of the guys I work with asked me to detail his black BMW today. The car was in pretty rough shape -years of gas station car washes and has almost never been waxed.

I got the PC and planned to start with an orange pad and PB 2.5 and go from there. After tearing my house apart I could not find my orange pads. So, I decided to start with a yellow and XMT 2. That didn't do the trick and after working my way up I used a yellow pad with PB 3.0 for the first polish. This did a great job getting rid of some serious water spots and scratches but left alot of swirls. I went to a white pad with XMT 1 and could not get rid of the swirls.

This is the first time I ever used a yellow pad and PB 3.0 on a car. Did I miss a step? After the yellow and PB 3.0 should I have used an orange pad and medium polish, and then white and fine polish? This is the only thing I can think of. I drive a black car, too. And have no problems getting the swirls out of mine.
 
the yellow Lake Country pads are the most aggressive made. If they did not make a dent in the swirls with XMT 3 then you gotta two choices. Move to a rotary or your gonna need to go back and work it hard for a lot of time and patience. This is a very abrasive combo and should put a dent in those swirls.

Yellow --- 3.0 (speed 5.5)
White --- 2 XMT (speed 5.5)
grey ---- 1.0 (speed 5.5)

do not move steps until each is complete ... the first step should remove swirls. The second should remove micromarring, and the finish should gem the surface.
 
Thanks Killer, I was worried that you couldn't go straight from yellow to white pads with out an intermediate step.

Today, was just a volunteer job. I figured it he wants to let me practice on his black BMW -great. Even with the swirls, just a good wash and some ex-p made it look about 100 times better than it did. The owner is very happy.
 
If XMT line is similar to the SSR Line, the #3 is very agressive like a compound and needs to be followed up with a medium polish and then final polish as Killr pointed out. I don't think the 1 in either line is good enough to take care of marring left over from #3.

If you want a compound that works well and finishes down like a polish, get some Optimum Compound. Love it. Even on a yellow Edge pad it finished down like a polish with basically no marring.
 
Surfer said:
If XMT line is similar to the SSR Line, the #3 is very agressive like a compound and needs to be followed up with a medium polish and then final polish as Killr pointed out. I don't think the 1 in either line is good enough to take care of marring left over from #3.

If you want a compound that works well and finishes down like a polish, get some Optimum Compound. Love it. Even on a yellow Edge pad it finished down like a polish with basically no marring.
Click to expand...

XMT #3 is more of an equivalent to Poorboy's 2.5.
 
BostonStang said:
Thanks Killer, I was worried that you couldn't go straight from yellow to white pads with out an intermediate step.

Today, was just a volunteer job. I figured it he wants to let me practice on his black BMW -great. Even with the swirls, just a good wash and some ex-p made it look about 100 times better than it did. The owner is very happy.
Click to expand...


you want to go down by pad as possible, but with a little more work, can usually skip a pad. I would personally start using orange pads and get rid of the yellows however. They just seem to be almost "too abrasive" for most jobs.
 
I'd use this if its that bad if useing xmt.

Yellow pad=#3
Orange pad=#2
Green pad=#1 and
white/blue pad for the glaze/wax/sealant
 
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