nick01

I own a Black Onyx Is350 and my paint has seen better days, I have pretty bad swirl marks some hard water spots and a few other sratches i would like to try and remove. I need some recomendations to get them out and then maintain a flawless finish. so what do i need?

1. 2 buckets with gritguard
2. good wash mitt?
3. Foam gun
4. UDM
5. what pads?
6. polishes?
7. Black hole glaze
8. Drying towels

anything else u guys can recomend? I want to get my stuff from glimmerglass but i need to know what to get is the poorboys package a good one?

Thanks Nick

XhyDra

iTrader: (8)

Here's what you need;

1. Two bucket system with grit guards,
- Car shampoo that does not contain sealants!
- Foam gun is fine.
- Two microfiber towels to wash the car with
- One for top half one for bottom half

2. A good clay bar
- Meguiar's makes a good clay bar.

3. Buffing / Polishing machine
- Porter Cable
- UDM
- Rotary (Not for the inexperienced)

4. Buffing pads
- Yellow (Tough to get out scratches)
- Orange (For moderate scratches)
- White ( For light swirls)
- Black / Green (For waxing)

5. Polishes
- Menzerna Intensive Polish PO83 (Heavy swirls) (Yellow / Orange pads)
- Menzerna 106FF Polish (Light swirls) (Orange / White pad)
- Menzerna Nano Polish II (Perfect shine) (White / Black / Green pad)

6. Sealants
- Meguiars NXT 2.0
- Zaino

Microfiber towels for everything!

Hope it helps

Chris@GlimmerGlass

iTrader: (3)

You have a good process outlined. The wash setup you mentioned will definitely be the best way to keep swirls at a minimum after you polish them out. That poorboys kit is the most popular udm kit I have.
Heres what I'd recommend Nick. When I first bought my M3 I had a similar situation, with it suffering from hard water spots and some moderate swirls and a few scratches (one in trunk that looked more like a deep scuff, and 2 on driver side door and rear qtr panel). This is the process I used:

(you can wash first before this if the car is dirty, but) wash w/ a vinegar/water mixture to help remove/reduce the hard water marks. Obviously the etched marks wont come out this way, but it helped to give me a good start at least.
Wash w/ a citrus based wash. (ie: citrus wash n gloss, p21s total auto wash-soap mixture, etc) This is going to remove some old wax and build up.
Clay using a fine clay. (ie: gray 200g or elastic clay 110g). I use either LUBER or spray n wipe when using clay.
Rewash to remove any clay residue.
Polish w/ UDMpc on speed 6 with ssr2.5 on orange pad. It might require more than one pass if the car is in really bad shape. After going around the car, move to ssr1 on a white pad at speed 4-5. The higher speed might be intimidating at first, but its really not too bad.
At this point you can finish it off how you'd like. Black hole has been very popular since it came out, so you have a good selection there. You can do it by machine or by hand. If by machine, grab a black pad and apply at a slower speed, around 3. Top with Nattys Blue (I do it by hand).
That was the same process (well, minus the blk hole) I used and since spending a full day when I first brought her home, I've only had to polish 1x a year to keep it up.

Like I mentioned, the wash process you have outlined is great. A two bucket method w/ grit guards and a sheepskin mitt with the foam gun is a great setup. If you wanted to go a step further, you could consider the water softener/cartridge to help reduce water spots. The one thing I noticed after I started to use the water softener is that the car required only 1 waffle weave drying towel, whereas it would sometimes require a 2nd towel to get everything totally dry. nice! The water really does sheet off easier. The 24x36 ww drying towel is a great towel. The foam core towel is nice. The less expensive ww towel on the site is ok, but I wouldnt bother with it honestly. Its very soft, but not as absorbent as I like.