Couple weeks ago I asked if anyone had tried the System One polishing compound. Only one member had used it and wasn't impressed with the results. Regardless I had already ordered the product so I was going to give it try. The big advantage claimed by System One is you only have to use 1 compound for polishing. The other advantage was that it was very difficult to burn the clear coat or paint using a powerful rotary buffer like the Porter Cable 7428 which I own. I've used several random orbital buffers and presently own a PC 7424. I only have very limited experience using something like the 7428 which is much faster and more powerful. Certainly powerful enough to do serious paint damage if not used properly.

All I did before using the System One polishing compound was wash my vette very carefully. That was it.... I did try a couple passes on one of my other cars using a 7" orange pad with the 7428. I simply followed the System One instructions and it seemed to work pretty well.

So it was than time to attack my VR 06 vette using System One and the 7428. It was a warm day for Connecticut (80 degs) with bright sun. I wanted to test if System One could be safely used in direct sunlight on a hot day... as they claim. You can also easily see every micro scratch and swirl working in bright sunlight. I took several before and after pictures but it's extremely difficult for the camera to see, what you can see with the human eye. Here's a before and after pic so you can decide for yourself...... On the 2nd set of pics the sun changed hence the difference in color between them. There was however a dramatic difference in the before and after results.






My impressions of using System One are as follows....
Very easy to use from a standpoint of novice like me. I could use whatever pads I wanted without worrying about mixing products. That's a nice feature because it made working a little faster for me. Very little product is was used polishing out my entire car. I bought a gallon of product and hardly made a dent in it. I believe the secret is using product sparsely so you get the real effect of cutting and polishing. Using the true rotary buffer is many times faster than a orbital buffer. It's not without it's own headaches because that sucker really can be a bear to hang onto.

I applied the product directly to the orange or white pads. Started at a slow rpm and after spreading kicked the speed to between 3 and 4. I found that was plenty fast enough to get the job done. Did about 2 ft square area each polishing sequence. Worked the product for several minutes and removed with microfibre towels. I also kept a spray bottle of 50-50 alcohol/water and sprayed areas that were harder to remove. Made things go faster and easier.

I recommend for newbee's (like me) to polish areas that have a lot of working area. At least until you get the hang of a rotary buffer. If you don't like what you see after one pass do it again. It's fast and pretty easy to do. Keep several pads around because they will build up with product pretty fast.

If to much product is used it can get damn messy. I learned that less is more after an hour or so.... You can splatter pretty easy with so much product. I finally used about 5 or 6 dabs about 1/4 inch round on the pads. It's not going to hurt anything to use more but as I said it can get messy. Be prepared to wash the car down when your finished polishing. One thing I didn't like was the product tended to be very easy to splatter. Didn't have a lot of dust but enough to be annoying. That probably has more to do with how I used it than with the product itself.

From my standpoint the results were excellent. Almost all the micro-scratches and swirl marks were gone. If you have deeper scratches you probably need to use a more aggressive product before using System One.

I'm not going to tell you this is the end all product because I don't have enough experience to say that. I am saying it was very easy to use and it kept the clear coat safe from burning. You'd really have to work at burning the clear coat/paint using this stuff. That's the main reason I bought and it worked as advertised.... I have more pics if anyone is interested...

I'm no expert like many here and just hobby type detailer. I have to say the difference between using a TRUE rotary buffer and orbital buffer is large. I could have never removed all the swirls and micro scratches using an OB in time I did with the RB!! I'd say I spent about 4 hours doing most of the work with RB. Still have some areas I not satisfied with and I'm going to hit them tomorrow. Like to have it all Zanioed by the end of tomorrow. Hope this has been helpful to some of guys here....

 

Good review Craig...Thanks!

 

very nice and fair assessment.

My first use of SystemOne was ok but nothing stood out. We had a demo at DFIII and very impressed with ease of use and hints provided. It worked quite well in sun and heat also, which usually slows down polishing.

 

Thanks........ today I'm going back at some area's I'm not completely satisfied with but over all it's getting very close to waxing time. I also find the stuff works very well with the PC OB which I'm using in the smaller areas this morning. Once again a little product goes a long ways. Right now I'd say the paint looks better than the first day I bought the car brand new.

As I stated it's not an end all product but then nothing really is. The real trick to making this stuff work well is to really break it down and work it hard. I'd say a good 3 mins or more per section. When I first started I was trying to go to fast and didn't get the true efficiency of the product. If nothing else I satisfied myself as to using a true RB without damaging anything. That true RB is so much faster it's amazing but you just have to be careful........

Well the car is calling so I might as well get back to work......

I'll post a more pics when I get everything finished up.

 

Thank you for the fair and unbiased post!

Just a slight correction, if you don't mind: More than one member used it, only one did not like it.

 

Thanks for the correction.... I was only aware of the 1 member that said he didn't really like the product. I'm going to do my other 3 cars with it now so I'll get more experience with it. Over all it worked as advertised and I'm happy with results....... Thanks again..

 

Nice, fair and detailed write-up. Thanks for taking the time to post so we can learn along with you.

 

I thought with all that was posted it was not possible to not notice I liked the product and was disagreeing on comments posted

In the end bottom line is all that matters so as long as you are happy and feel you got what was promised and your money's worth that is all that matters

 

.... that's what really counts in all of this stuff. I don't mind paying good money but the product as to perform as advertised....

 

I've been toying with buying a RB to augment my PC. Did you tape the edges or just gingerly avoid them? How fast would you say you moved across the surface....I move about 1-2"/second using a PC, but would think you don't want to linger that long with a RB.

Car looks good.

 

If your worried about the dangers of the rotary, consider the Flex random orbital with 9600 orbits. It is a safe middle ground.

 

Exactly, same here.

And if two products do not end up absolutely equal one has to keep in mind what was "return on investement" ratio. If product A (let's say System One) achieves "only" let's say 90% (I am pulling this figure out just for example, it means nothing) of what product B achieves but price of product A per application is smaller enough than product B's then one can say (depending on what definition of value is) that product A's value ended up higher than product B's for certain situations.

It would be unfair and unrealistic to expect anything else so as long as product provides what was advertised we should be

 

 

At first I was moving the RB at the speed of light.. which of course did nothing! I finally got the hang of it and settled down. I did move faster than my OB, but not that much. I didn't tape any edges but I did tape anywhere the buffer could come in contact with trim items. That thing will put a shine on rubber parts, etc darn fast.

As for speed I started the OB at 1 just to spread the material and quickly went to about 3 or 4. I never really used the top speed (5) which I'd guess is around 3000 rpm. Someone that knows the PC OB better than me can probably tell you the actually speed for those settings.

To be honesty it's not nearly as touchy as I thought it might be. What's really amazing is how fast you can remove swirls and micro-scratches. If you've used a OB a fair amount don't think you'd have much of problem mastering the OB. I estimate a 2' x 2' area took me about 3 mins start to finish. After inspecting I'd hit it again if I wasn't happy. I took my time but the System One seemed to always keep the area lubricated well. I believe that really important to avoid disasters. Keep in mind I used this stuff in direct sunlight on a pretty hot day and it worked just fine. You really need good lighting or sunlight to see those micro scratches. My wife thought I'd lost my mind the way I was looking over the car...

I had some pretty deep scratches (damn cat) and did use a more aggressive compound. It said it was equivalent to 2000 grit. That left lots of micro scratches but the System One removed them with ease... A single pass had the paint looking great again.

For me I'm completely sold on the benefits of a good RB. I'll still use my PC OB for many things but there are things the RB does much better and faster. I don't think it's nearly has difficult to use as I originally thought. It's like anything else... a little practice goes a long....

Here's a few pics of the finished product....

 

That looks dang good!
Thanks for the info. I also think it shouldn't be hard to master the RB given a little practice and common sense. System One sounds good, but I'm sold on Menzerna products for correction + ZPC for jeweling.

 

What type of buffer was used, I am slightly confused?

 

I used a Porter Cable 7428 true rotary buffer... almost all of the work was done using this
machine.

 

Whoa!