How does this swirl removal plan sound?

D

debaser330ci

New member
Just picked up a nice CPO Carbon Black 2004 M3 with about 3,000 miles on it. Of course, the previous owner and/or the dealer didn't know how to properly care for it, and the entire car is covered with really bad swirls and holograms. Can't believe it's this bad with this few miles!



Last weekend I washed with dawn to get all the old wax and silicone off and tried to remove the swirls by hand with 3M SMR for dark cars, a product I've had good luck with in the past applying by hand. Didn't take long to figure out things were FAR too gone for any hand-applied product. I stopped after only doing part of the hood to strategize and rest my aching arm and wrist.



This week I picked up a PC 7336 from Lowe's and a Sonus DAS Pad Kit from Autopia. Tomorrow I plan to attack the M3 with my new weapons. Since I've never used a PC before I want to be careful I'm not too aggressive or screw something up. So the plan is:



1. Wash with Dawn

2. Clay (my zaino clay was all dried up, bought some new sonus clay)

3. 3M SMR for dark cars applied with the DAS GREEN pad <--GREEN is correct for this product, right?

4. Wash with Dawn again

5. Z2/ZFX etc, the normal zaino steps



How does it sound? Hopefully the SMR will come through again for me with the new machine.
 
If the swirls are as bad as you make them sound, I doubt the green pad will be enough, but like they say, start with the least aggressive and move towards more aggressive.



If the green doesn't do it, move on to the orange. I bought a SFX yellow for my detail just in case.



JJ
 
Try going over the surface twice with the SMR and the green pad and take a look at the results, if not its time for something a a little more agressive (like J.J. suggests try the same polish with an orange pad.



Machine Polish / Foam Pad Combinations:

Always start with the least abrasive combination, i.e. a machine polish comparative abrasion scale (CAS)

CAS =3 and the least aggressive (polishing) foam pad. If that combination doesn't remove the imperfections, using the same machine polish CAS = 3 and change to a more aggressive (cutting) foam pad. If the surface imperfections remain, then step-up the abrasive to a polish CAS = 4 and use the least aggressive (polishing) pad, and finally step up to the same polish with a more agressive (cutting) pad.



The speed at which the foam pad travels across a paint surface is also important, too fast or slow wonâ€â„¢t allow the micro-abrasive to â€Ëœbeak downâ€â„¢, Machine linier speed (MLS) buffer or rotary machine movement shown as inches per second(FPS0, polishing 1-2 FPS



It is preferable to polish 2-3 times to restore the paint film surface than to use an unnecessarily abrasive machine polish / foam pad combination.



The abrading ability of any polish can be changed by their application method (i.e. machine or hand application, speed and / or pressure used, using it wet or dry and / or type of foam composition (different foam compositions and / or densities have a differing abrading ability) Machine, foam pad and product; the work is approximately distributed, 60% product, 30% foam composition and 10% pressure applied and / or speed of rotation or oscillation.

JonM
 
Wow, thanks for the awesome advice everyone, especially Jon. I read your post 3 times to make sure I got it all. Today I tackled the worst problem area, the hood. First time I ever used the PC, was kinda scary on the M3!



Two applications of the 3M SMR/green sonus pad improved things somewhat but still left lots of swirls. With trepidation, I switched to the orange sonus pad with some 3M 39002 Fine Cut that I had lying around, and things started to look much much better. I think all the swirls and holograms are gone, I'll have to look closer tomorrow when the sun is directly overhead. I slapped on some Z1/Z2 for now until next weekend when I can work on it some more.
 
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