picus

That's right, it's removing a super thin layer of clear to level it out, thus removing the scratches. How many times you can buff your car depends on how aggressively you need to buff when you do. In the case of parents with rags it is more than likely we're talking very light surface marring, the kind that looks much worse than it actually is. A relatively light to moderate polish should remove the bulk of the marring without significantly thinning the clear.

Sort of on topic; when I bought my last car I wanted to a little experiment regarding polish frequency and it's effect on clear coats; the car was purchased with 16.1 mils of clear on it. It was used so the first thing I did was rather heavily compounded the car to remove the bulk of the scratches from the previous owner. I owned the car for just under 3 years and in that time I did that one major compounding, then 4 more light polishes (2x a year). When I sold the car it had an average of 16 mils of clear, so I had reduced it by one tenth of a mil. To put that in perspective you can normally remove ~1/3rd (on in this case 5 mils) of clear before you experience clear coat failure.

I hope I've been around here enough that you guys know I am generally very open minded with regards to detailing. I do not tend to make black and white statements and find that everyone has a specific set of techniques and tools they use to achieve their desired results. That said, I strongly disagree with the above statement. I am not trying to start an argument, I am just speaking from years of experience. A PC is an exceptional buffer considering it's price and ease of use. A full car can be buffed extremely successfully in a days time. Will a rotary be faster? In the hands of a professional, yes absolutely. Will a rotary do a better job? It depends on the paint, the skill of the user, and the beginning condition of the car. There are literally thousands of examples of stunning turn arounds on autopia completely entirely by PC. I personally use a rotary for most marring removal, however there was a stretch where my rotary was out of commission this year, and I don't feel my work suffered at all because of it. The jobs took slightly longer, but the end results were the same. (in case you're interested every car on my site from April through July were PC only details).

If someone maintains their car properly from the start the PC is imo, the best $109 investment they can make towards the long term paint appearance and health of their car.

Best regards.

gyung

iTrader: (1)

I almost have the exact same car... X Package, Obsidian, Nav, but I got it with cashmere and 10/01/06 =P But I can understand how you feel

Anyway, I bought a 6" cordless random orbital from Home Depot (the name escapes me now), and it's my first one. At the beginning I was hesitant about using it on my new car, so I tried the trunk first to see if I knew how to handle and use it without damage. Well it turned out pretty good, so I went with the rest of the car. While it's not a PC, it did it's job. It had enough power and was effective for me. I kinda wish I bought a PC instead, but I have to say, it really beats doing everything by hand, and does a better job. I haven't used any really abrasive pads or compounds, and I don't know much about it, but this weekend I'm planning to try out my new wax after I use Dawn and clay the car.

I like to do things myself, and it's almost like a hobby now, so I'm ok with it. But like other said, you might consider taking it to a Pro first before going head-on now. My paint is still in pretty good condition, so It's no problem with just wax. I heard something about wet-sanding for things like this, but I don't know much about it. So maybe... find a pro first anyway

LXMN

Curious as to how you knew that you had 16.1 mils of clear coat. Did you use a mil guage to check the thickness of the paint? That is over 1 1/2 centimeters of clear paint. Very thick. I used to be aerospace finisher in my previous life and we always had to follow a mil spec thickness for all topcoats and primers. Average thickness of the topcoat finish (finish coat-glossy) was between 1.5-2.6 mils thick. This is for an airplane that will not need another coat of paint for 2-5 yrs. I am not bashing on you, just curious is all. It just seems like a lot of paint.

picus

You're right; I was using the wrong measurment (x10) so the decimal is in the wrong spot. I had 1.61m of clear. In any event I was using that example just to show that if you compound carefully you can do so without removing a significant amount of clear.

I use a Checkline dcfn 3000 PTG.

Thanks for the correction!