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Looks pretty good. I think that the detailer did do a polish but it didn't really hide the swirls. I think that I do need something more aggressive. I will try and post a pic later today to show you the swirls.
The results were impressive. I tried 3M swirl remover for light colored cars last summer with poor results. I think I needed something with a bit more "oomph". I'll have to take some pics.
I'll try. Swirls are hard to see in pictures, especially on light metallic cars. I could really only see them in person when the sun hit it right. I guess I shouldn't call them swirls. They were more like back and forth streak marks from drying or something. I had some body work done on my car about a year and a half ago and began noticing this streak marks. I'm thinking they washed and dried the car with a dirty sponge or towel. I've been using a lambs wool wash mit and microfiber drying towels since I got the car, so I don't think they were from me. I used the 3M stuff with my portercable last summer and either it didn't do anything or I put streak marks back into the paint, but again, I don't think my washing and drying techniques are the culprit. This SSR2.5 is abit more aggressive.
The article that Wannabe posted from Better Car Care.com really tells you everything you need to know about swirl removal. In terms of what brand you should use it's really a matter of preference. They're all pretty good.
To compare the abrasive level of pads and polishes across different brands you can use this chart.
That's a great chart. I'll be bookmarking that one.
As you can see, the 3M PERFECT-IT SWIRL MARK REMOVER LIGHT CARS 39109 "contains large amounts of fillers" and is a polish vs being a light/medium/heavy cut compound. This is what I used the first time. I guess it's better to go conservative than to go overboard with cutting power, but like I said, after a few months, my swirls came back when the fillers wore off. As you can see Poorboy's SSR2.5 is in the medium cut category, so I believe this did the trick for me. I used a (light cut) white foam polishing pad for the SSR2.5 and then used a red pad for their carnuba polish, which for some reason is not on this chart.
I just took some pics. The weather's kinda crappy today, so not very good light:
I need to take pics. I just clayed 3m swirl removed, meguiars polish and gold classed my car. Looks better than show room. First time with a PC and thanks to you guys it went pretty well. I can gauge how much product to apply for next time so that will cut down on my removal process which killed most of the time. 6 months ago by hand it took me 6+ hours. Today i got it done inside 4 but it looks soo much better than when i did it before. I learned alot from trial and error so i will try and get it done inside 2 hours next time. The PC is just awesome. I got it at Lowes and picked up some Meguiars pads one light yellow and two buffing beige pads. I got a pretty good amount of swirls out of the paint and i guess some of them are deeper than i thought so they will have to be fo next time.
Im untrained with the PC so i didnt want to go higher than mild cutting pad and swirl remover till the next local detail day. After i get some more tips i'll try and tackle them. Still im very pleased with the results and it was worth doing it by myself and saving 200 bucks on a detail job.
04-15-2006, 08:53 AM
