How often do you guys polish?

P

Proballer25

New member
Sup guys i had a simple question for you all. How often do you guys find your self polishing your vehicle's? Seems like every 3 months or so the swirls are coming back on my paint and im having to repolish to get it back to new again. Im kinda worried cause at this rate and its an 06 in about 3 years ill have no clear left on the paint HAHA.
 
if you refine your washing & drying technique, you won't have to use something real abrasive often. i usually do it 2-3 times a year with a light polish, and that should be fine with the clear for many years...
 
LOL, I know what you mean. It feels like that for me as well. But at some point,

I decided that my car was too much of a daily driver, and things are just gonna

happen. Even with proper washing and drying techniques, I know I will get

some form of marring. And if it was not by my hand, I knew that some jackhole

would mess around too close to my car and scratch it up. It just became a matter of

what i could live with. So now I pretty much do one main polish for the year, and

then follow up with light polishes or glaze. If I am seeing a potential client, then

I try to get the car up to snuff, but otherwise, i stopped sweating the lil stuff. Besides,

my car on its worst days still looks way better than a lot of the cars I see on the

street where I live and work :grinno:
 
pt91 said:
once every 12 to 18 months on our daily drivers
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About the same here, but less often on the ones that don't get driven as often..more like every 2-3 years or so. But if I detect any marring (usually RIDS) I correct it and I'm mighty rigorous about inspecting them ;)



This gets back to the importance of a good wash/dry technique. Vehicles don't *have* to get marred in normal use, even daily-drivers. If you simply never touch the paint when it's dirty except to wash it, and you wash it properly, the paint won't get marred enough to require polishing. Well, unless you have what's been called "stupid-soft" paint, and I wouldn't own a car with that.
 
Accumulator said:
Well, unless you have what's been called "stupid-soft" paint, and I wouldn't own a car with that.
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My mother has one of those cars (Black BMW X3) and it needs polishing at least 3 times a year, and that is with just me washing it, 2 bucket method, sheepskins, blot dry, etc. Thank God she only leased it, the paint is just terrible.



On most cars I get by with a deep spring polish (usually no more agressive than say, OP or FPII via PC.) Then I will use KAIO in the summer and fall to deep clean the paint and apply new LSP.
 
Bigpoppa3346- Heh heh, yeah, that BMW black is exactly what I was thinking of ;) Hope she gets something lower maintenance next time so you can destress for a few years.
 
Accumulator said:
Bigpoppa3346- Heh heh, yeah, that BMW black is exactly what I was thinking of ;) Hope she gets something lower maintenance next time so you can destress for a few years.
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Yeah, she loves the car, but she says she will get silver or gray next time. I'll never forget the first day she brought it home from the dealer, I looked at it under the lights and :help:.



It's wierd though, it seems that only the new black BMWs are the really soft ones, the rest of them seem pretty hard.



I try to keep polishing to a minimum on any car, I just don't want to take chances with the clear.
 
Same as most said already, once every 10-12 months or so, and usually a finishing polish at that; occasionally I'll have to use my IP, but it's rare and only for defect removal, not the entire car.
 
I'm actually an 18-month to 24-month guy which ain't easy for a black car owner. I plan on keeping this car till it practically dies (daily driver). A refined, careful washing technique definitely helps keep me sane. TX (Dallas) weather is very hot but overall it's not too bad of an LSP killer so i generally use a glaze/carnauba wax combination - greatly helps cover minor swirls.
 
Bigpoppa3346 said:
Every time you polish, you remove some of the vehicle's paint. While this amount may be small, it does add up over time.
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This is totally dependent on what you use to polish and how you do it. Some light corrective polishes (used properly) are about as harmless as a hand wash.
 
David Fermani said:
This is totally dependent on what you use to polish and how you do it. Some light corrective polishes (used properly) are about as harmless as a hand wash.
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agreed, that's why i *can* polish more often...
 
Accumulator said:
Well, unless you have what's been called "stupid-soft" paint, and I wouldn't own a car with that.
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Does Honda paint fall under that category?



I polish my car once in the spring and then give it a tune-up (light polish) in the fall.
 
I obtained my car virtually swirl free about a year and a half ago.



Since then I have been able to keep marring to a very slight level by babying the paint and taking all reasonable precautions. (wool wash mitt, two buckets with/grit guards, no QDing on dirty car, only first rate MFs).



As a result I only polish my paint 2 times a year and I only use a chemical, non-abrasive polishes like KAIO or Werkstatt Prime Strong to polish whatever minor marring I have.



At some point I'll probably accumlate enough signficant marring that I will have to graduate to a more abrasive polish - but, so far - so good.
 
toml said:
Does Honda paint fall under that category?



I polish my car once in the spring and then give it a tune-up (light polish) in the fall.
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Beats me, I haven't owned a Honda since my old CRX Si in the mid-80s :D



But I wouldn't expect your current regimen to cause problems.



When I say "stupid-soft" I mean those paints that are so delicate that people mar them with virtually any contact at all...the kind of paints that PCs leave "hook-shaped" marring on, for instance. Yours doesn't sound *close* to being that soft.
 
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