Beginner questions
 

My past detailing experiences have been to wash the car and armor all the tires. I recently purchased a Porter Cable DA polisher to dabble into getting my 2000 C5 looking it's best. My car sits outside (under a cover) and to my knowledge has been an outdoor car most of it's life.

While the paint is shiney, it certainly has it's fair share of imperfections. Light scratches, swirls etc. Can you throw out some recommendation on what type of polishes are best to tackle my car? The only high end products that I am familiar with, but never tried are the Chemical guys after watching a few Youtube vids. Do I use a wax after the polish? Should I DA my glass?

Thanks in advance.

Rob

See my thread below

I'm asking about how to prep for ceramic but the same stuff applies if youre going to wax as the final step instead. I polished with Jescar compound and a 5.5" lake country orange pad to remove swirls on my black pickup before I'll do it to the corvette. You'd go with a higher speed setting on the DA (I used 4) for the polishing step and a low setting for the wax step (probably 2).

I do the glass too, with McKee's 37 glass cleaner or Griots Garage glass cleaner. Those are the only two I've used thus far though, and finish up with something like Rain-X to make water bead away.

On a basic level... start simple.

Clay bars you can buy at walmart or your local auto parts store. You can use soapy water as a lube for the clay.

The paint condition will tell you more about what polish you need (and how much time you want to spend on it). If you have a harbor freight you can pick up some foam pads pretty cheap there, and meguiars 105 and 205. Between those, you should have no issue with getting the paint in better shape. Always start non aggressive and work up, because you also have to work back down.

thanks for the reply. I noticed the Meguires 105 is considered an ultra cut, but in your last sentence you mentioned starting non aggressive. Can you elaborate on that?

quick point of yours that no one addressed... I wouldn't recommend you trying to polish glass on the car, that would require a lot of expertise to do right and In most cases I would just recommend buying new glass if it has any significant damage.

I have a bottle of Meguiars Mirror Glaze #1 Medium Cut Cleaner that I used for a different project. What is the difference between that and the meguiars 105?

105 is definitely more aggressive, but still a very good recommendation in my opinion, think that is what he meant there.

Thank you. I'll pick some up.

What he means by nonaggressive is to start with the least aggressive polish with the least aggressive cutting/polishing pad, do a test spot and see if it removes the swirls in that spot. Do like a 16"x16" area.

Then do another test spot with the same compound and more aggressive pad, for example, and see how that does, and so on.

When you think you've got a good combo to go forward with, and you're happy with the paint, do the whole car with that combo.

I took their recommendations here and went with the Lake County pads, they have 6 colors that go from heavy cutting to finish polish. I imagine I'll stick with that brand in the future. You just have to test the colors in the middle of the range and go up or down from there. I didn't use the finishing pads for my test project, I used white and orange.

Then you can coat with wax or whatever you like, wax with the finishing pads. That Mirror Glaze #1 is one I've used by hand in the past, I don't think its going to get the job done for you if the swirls are bad, but you can try it.

Awesome. thanks. I'll check in to those pads. Looking forward to getting started with it.

Sound advice. Also, the little painstaking things go a long way in good paint correction. Tape up your trim and moldings, work small sections, and always check your progress inside or under cover with a light. Ideally, the whole process should be in a dark, covered space where you can control the light. Cloudy / sunny skies makes any car shine look much better than it actually is. All paint is different, some you can get away with 2-step, some you might need 4 stages. Just take your time and compare results as you go.

I actually noticed with my car, the front of the vehicle was damn near flawless while my hatch deck and rear quarters needed the most attention. Each section of the car may require different levels of clay/cut/polish/glaze/wax, etc.