How often do you polish..

Hines said:
my show truck gets it once a year, 10hrs or so



my daily driver 2 times a year. about 6hrs
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10hrs? Are you serious? I'm still waiting for my PC to arrive. Probably Friday.

But I'm thinking 30 mins per panel. I guess it depends on the paint conditions

but 10 hrs for polishing alone seems too much fun. :-) Good to know anyway

so I won't feel so bad if I take 11 hrs. :-)
 
Heh heh, I've spent a *lot* longer than 10 hours before :o



Depending on what you're dealing with, it can take a *LOT* longer than 30 min/panel, that's for sure. I'm0certain I spend longer than that even when I use the rotary for the worst of it, but then I'm not in a hurry either.



But these days I hardly *ever* polish, not even the daily drivers. I quit marring the paint when I wash and for the most part that's that, I don't even do it once a year. Occasionally stuff *does* still happen, but nothing regular. Before I got the foamgun I had to polish every spring (assuming winter use).
 
Im very anal so prolly 3-4 times a year. Did my hood twice already this year and will do it for a 3rd time this weekend when I get my IP from Ranney
 
Accumulator said:
Heh heh, I've spent a *lot* longer than 10 hours before :o



Depending on what you're dealing with, it can take a *LOT* longer than 30 min/panel, that's for sure. I'm0certain I spend longer than that even when I use the rotary for the worst of it, but then I'm not in a hurry either.



But these days I hardly *ever* polish, not even the daily drivers. I quit marring the paint when I wash and for the most part that's that, I don't even do it once a year. Occasionally stuff *does* still happen, but nothing regular. Before I got the foamgun I had to polish every spring (assuming winter use).
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I too avoid marring the paint by taking my car to the pressure car wash (laserwash) these

days. The pressure wash removes 95% of the road dirts. That is safer than 2 buckets

hand wash in my opinion. I'll then finish off with Z6 QD afterward. My paint is only a year

old and it looks pretty good. I can only see the hair line swirls under the light. But I want

my paint to go up a notch. After seeing all the pictures in the Click and Brag section, I

decided to do the machine polishing and join other autopians. :)
 
-KGB- said:
Im very anal so prolly 3-4 times a year. Did my hood twice already this year and will do it for a 3rd time this weekend when I get my IP from Ranney
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Why only hood? Is it because the swirls look more obvious on the hood?

Wouldn't you want the uniform deep wet look for the entire car? Or you're

just doing the spot repair?
 
My girlfriends Subaru gets a polish just about every 8-10 weeks. Its garaged at night but either sits under Pepper trees in her work lot or on the street when she can. Lotsa birds in Santa Barbara too?! I will hit it with FP, #80 or a mild cleaner depending on how much energy I have, dirty the paint is, defects yada-yada. The wagon takes me about two and a half hours to clay horizontally, polish, condition the trim and LSP-ize. The key is to make sure I stay on top of it, not letting it get to a level of more intensive work.
 
I polish my car once every 4-6 months. Usually I would just go over it with the following steps...



M80/W8006/RB (OR M83/W8006/RB - For moderate surface defects)

M82/W9006/RB
 
Im always trying new stuff(test mule) so my A4 is polished about 3-5 times a year. I spend about 3-4 hrs on it. but thats not strait work(neighbors end up coming over). If im into it about 2 hrs or less.
 
jedi_force said:
Why only hood? Is it because the swirls look more obvious on the hood?

Wouldn't you want the uniform deep wet look for the entire car? Or you're

just doing the spot repair?
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The rest of the car was already buffed out. Im having a hard tme with the hood, I think that clear, being that it was repainted, is harder than I thought. Even with a rotary Im havng trouble clearing the scratches
 
jedi_force said:
10hrs? Are you serious? I'm still waiting for my PC to arrive. Probably Friday.

But I'm thinking 30 mins per panel. I guess it depends on the paint conditions

but 10 hrs for polishing alone seems too much fun. :-) Good to know anyway

so I won't feel so bad if I take 11 hrs. :-)
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assuming you have a 4-door, that's still about 330 minutes or close to 5-ish hours....not far off from 6 which is what he said he spent on his car. but i don't know what you own so ...whatever. I polish whenever I gets pissed off at my paint. sometimes I think i need it, then I wash and realize it was all in my head. honestly every 8 weeks or so i polish to perfection.
 
Used to be three to four times a year. Have cut it down to three or less ayear. Thanks to Accumulator's constant reminders to awoid marring it will be less and less as I conform to the axion, "First do no Harm."



It will be a while before I do not ever polish. Yet, I am working on it.



It takes me six hours to polish my truck when I do a full detail.
 
I only have to do it once a year, hitting only the areas where there is visible marring with somthing like Optimum Polish or Compound. I'll give the entire car a once over with either VM or AIO.



BTW, this is one of the best threads I've read here on polishing. Something to keep in mind ...
 
My car is a 2003 model, but I have only mechanically deep polished twice (IP/FPII)...I try to focus on wash/drying technique to keep the marring down. However, I chemically polish (AIO or ColorX) at least once every 3 months to remove old layers of LSP.
 
I do it about once every two years with Meg's #82 and takes about 5 hours. While using a mostly touchless washing method with a foamgun, pressure washer and DI water rinse I dont really physically touch the paint. I wash with a mitt and dry with a WW MF once a month if I have the time for a really good wash. Since my car is a daily beater that sits outside 24/7 even through the harsh Canadian winter, it is in better condition than most newer cars. I usually leave a 1/2" of snow when I do use a snow brush in the winter, that helps alot with avoiding swirls marks.
 
EdLancer- No doubt about it, having it outside 24/7 in your area poses a lot of challenges!



WannaFbody- Would you believe it takes me all that time even *with* a rotary :o Good thing I'm not doing this as a business! Of course with silver I have to spend forever inspecting whereas I could see stuff a lot easier when I was still driving black cars (guess that's "the blessing and the curse", for both colors).
 
Boy, did Accumulator hit the nail on the head!! Three days ago, I decided to work on my dark-gray metallic Focus. Wash, clay, wash (love the foamgun, and two buckets), spot polish with SSR 2.5 on a few localized spots, whole car with SSR 1, RMG, and finish with Natty's Blue.



I like the overall look of the car. The RMG does add wetness, likely because of the oils, and the Natty's Blue does make the car look even darker.



But, when the sun was out yesterday, nice and bright, I noticed that I still had swirls on the decklid (which I surmised I did beforehand), and still a very minor issue on the hood.



I am thinking two things. One, is that I need to work very, "very" slowly with the PC. The two hours I spent in the polishing phase means that I went way too fast, and didn't let the polish do its job.



Second, is that I gotta look really, really! hard from all angles on my gray car to see the defects. It's not like watching tennis balls land on or near a line (my "other" job). I gotta STARE at the surface to see what's up.



So, I can learn from this. Since the car looks "better than acceptable," I will let it go for a few weeks. I have some time next month where I can simply devote a whole day to doing it better.



And, stare at the paint I will. I use bifocals to read reallly small print, so I guess that's where I gotta go.



But, I could see "everything" easily with my last (black) car. But, so could everyone else.



There IS "a blessing and a curse."
 
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