How many swirls have you decided to live with on your daily driver? (People with brand new car's can stop reading now )
My car is a 5 year old Acura I just bought last year. It's very shiny but very swirled.
First I tried SSR2/cutting pad and did 3 passes pressing on the PC kinda hard on a section before I got success (pic 1 shows the taped line between the area I did and did not do)
There were still some deeper swirled areas and 3 passes while pressing hard did not seem a good option for the whole car.
Then I tried DACP/cutting pad for 1 pass and decided I still needed something stronger.
Next I tried SSR3/cutting pad for 2 passes on the entire hood (PC speed 5.5)
This seemed to work a bit better but still some fine scratches (pic 2) on the hood all in random directions (all are about 2" long)
At this point, should I just live with them? Would a rotary *safely* repair these or should I save my clear coat for future polishing? (when I get wash induced swirls back, etc)
you mention you pressed down hard:nono the pc will not work correctly if you press hard...you will lose the RO part of it and it's not fast or strong enough to match the work of a rotary....
some things you do have to live with on a daily driver, but you can continue to work towrds making it less and less noticable....pics are hard to judge how deep they are too...they are nice to look at but you are they only one who can tell if each pass is making them better or not...
Damn a response in 5 minutes!
When I did the SSR2 I might have been pressing so hard that it stopped rotating but I have since lightened up the pressure so it does spin with the SSR3 passes I did. I start by applying pressure (but the pad still spins) then after about 2 min of that I ease up so the pad spins full speed.
I'm sure a couple more passes of SSR3 would take care of it but since I'll be polishing a couple times a year, I'm not sure if I wanna go full out on the finish right away. The scratches cannot be felt with a finger nail though.
On my daily drivers I have learned that I need to live with some scratches (really bad swirls) or whatever you want to call them. I usually detail under 1000 watt halogen lights and you can see every micro mark in the paint. I know the marks are still there but under normal lighting and outside you cannot see them. I like to polish my cars to the most extreme shine possible so that means I want as much paint left on the car to polish it again in the not to distant future. In NW Pennsylvania just the snow buiding up on the dirt on the car and then sliding off when the temperature changes causes some scratching ... It is something I have learned to live with. Medication helps with the obsessive behaviors. (HAHAHA)
On my new black M-Benz E55, I've got these very, very fine swirls when I look at my trunk from a distance of 6 inches in sunlight. But under halogen or HID garage lights, I can't see them. I figure I'd just live with them until my next polishing session.
Plus...who the heck looks at my car that closely Otherwise, the shine is almost blindin'
)
