Issue with Meguiar 105

Crossfire

New member
I've been working all day today on my front fender and door on my Jet Black BMW. It had a lot of swirls, scratches and other imperfections. 205 would not touch much of it working with my 3 inch Griot and an orange pad. I switched to 105 and after two or three sessions of about 5 minutes each I saw improvement. The swirls were gone and only the deepest imperfections were still visible. I had two issues however:
1) After the passes with 105 the paint has a haze that would not come off with my Griot pre-wax cleaner. It would only disappear after a pass or two with 205. Is this to be expected?
2) When wiping down the 105 with the Griot pre-wax cleaner it just seemed to smear it around. Should I be using a different product to aid the removal of the left over 105? I'm afraid that I am causing imperfections from all the cleaning.:(
 
I've been working all day today on my front fender and door on my Jet Black BMW. It had a lot of swirls, scratches and other imperfections. 205 would not touch much of it working with my 3 inch Griot and an orange pad. I switched to 105 and after two or three sessions of about 5 minutes each I saw improvement. The swirls were gone and only the deepest imperfections were still visible. I had two issues however:
1) After the passes with 105 the paint has a haze that would not come off with my Griot pre-wax cleaner. It would only disappear after a pass or two with 205. Is this to be expected? Yup
2) When wiping down the 105 with the Griot pre-wax cleaner it just seemed to smear it around. Should I be using a different product to aid the removal of the left over 105? I'm afraid that I am causing imperfections from all the cleaning.:(Try a QD first, then after the residue is gone use the Griots cleaner. For 105 residue, which can be a royal pain sometimes, I like M34 Final Inspection. It seems to just eat up that residue.

Answered in red
 
What you have described is not completely unexpected. That's the reason people talk about multiple step corrections. I suspect that part of your issue is simply using the smaller pad polisher. I like the smaller pads for tight areas but don't use them for say a whole fender.

You mentioned inducing your imperfections in your cleaning process. This is perhaps the case. The best way to reduce the amount of time you spend on removing marring is not having it in the first place. Tough thing to do with a black car, they tend to show even the smallest blemish. Lots of great information on this site about proper wash procedure. Seems like there was one recently on how to do a 2 bucket wash.
 
I've been working all day today on my front fender and door on my Jet Black BMW. It had a lot of swirls, scratches and other imperfections. 205 would not touch much of it working with my 3 inch Griot and an orange pad. I switched to 105 and after two or three sessions of about 5 minutes each I saw improvement. The swirls were gone and only the deepest imperfections were still visible. I had two issues however:
1) After the passes with 105 the paint has a haze that would not come off with my Griot pre-wax cleaner. It would only disappear after a pass or two with 205. Is this to be expected?
2) When wiping down the 105 with the Griot pre-wax cleaner it just seemed to smear it around. Should I be using a different product to aid the removal of the left over 105? I'm afraid that I am causing imperfections from all the cleaning.:(

1. The haze that is left from 105 is normal. you would use 205 to remove the hazing and further refine the surface.

2. I normally don't use a wetting agent to remove polish. If you must I would recommend a QD of some kind. The pre-wax cleaner is the clean the panel of all the polishing oils not the polish itself.

3. I noted you are using a Griots 3" polisher. This will may or may not the job done. It will a considerable amount more time over a full sized polisher. If you have access to one I would suggest using that instead.
 
Great info about the QD, I will try my Adams' detailer next time. What is M34? I thought final inspection was an Mezerna product.
 
1. The haze that is left from 105 is normal. you would use 205 to remove the hazing and further refine the surface.

2. I normally don't use a wetting agent to remove polish. If you must I would recommend a QD of some kind. The pre-wax cleaner is the clean the panel of all the polishing oils not the polish itself.

3. I noted you are using a Griots 3" polisher. This will may or may not the job done. It will a considerable amount more time over a full sized polisher. If you have access to one I would suggest using that instead.

All good points. So most people remove the polish dry? I can see doing that with 205 but 105 comes off tough. The reason I went with the 3 inch is because of the small curvy areas on my BMW vert. I tried the 6 inch DA with a 5 inch pad but it was not able to follow the contours.
 
What you have described is not completely unexpected. That's the reason people talk about multiple step corrections. I suspect that part of your issue is simply using the smaller pad polisher. I like the smaller pads for tight areas but don't use them for say a whole fender.

You mentioned inducing your imperfections in your cleaning process. This is perhaps the case. The best way to reduce the amount of time you spend on removing marring is not having it in the first place. Tough thing to do with a black car, they tend to show even the smallest blemish. Lots of great information on this site about proper wash procedure. Seems like there was one recently on how to do a 2 bucket wash.

These are tight areas! If you look at the front fender of a BMW 3 series vert it has almost no flat area. I have never done a paint correction on the vertical surfaces before so the previous owners did all this stuff. I use the two pail method with grit guard, foamaster, WW towel etc.:rockon
 
Great info about the QD, I will try my Adams' detailer next time. What is M34? I thought final inspection was an Mezerna product.

Top Inspection is Menzerna. M34 Final Inspection is a Meguiar's product. I've never used Adam's detailer, but it might work just fine.
 
Crossfire,

I Detail almost 100 Bimmers a year, tell me again, where are you correcting on your BMW where you need to use the Griot with the 3" pad ? Or are you using the little tiny Griot 3" polisher? Both??

If this is the case, then perhaps part of your challenge is that this tiny buffer cant be doing a whole heck of a lot of good with Meguiars 105 in the first place. Meguiars 105 needs rotation of the pad to work good and finish down nicely. It will, even on Jet Black.
But it will still need further polishing to totally get the clearcoat as smooth as possible.

I agree, on the E46 Model 3 Series Bimmers, the beautiful front fenders are totally curved all the way around the wheelwell in some of the most beautiful flares, that were ever designed. I see these all the time, and have very succesfully used a 5" pad on a Rotary and/or a Flex 3401VRG (for last step polishing), and never needed anything smaller in diameter here.
Same for the doors - there is a lot of flatter areas there that would be better served with a 5" pad than a 3". The top edges of those doors where it is curved at the crease and then the area below the window can also be done very easily with the 5" pad again.

As you probably already know, Jet Black is the softest of the Bimmer paints in the black color pallete, so getting too aggressive with compounds can only give you more work and shave off more microns of clear.

I personally only like to use Menzerna Polishes on Jet Black but if it was extremely wacked, I mean really bad, I might throw on a Purple Foam Wool Pad and very gently work it and check a lot. But this again, is like if I need to remove really bad sanding scraatches, some one else's bad buffing with wool, etc., jobs, ...

Meguiars products can also work, but to me, the 105 compound requires a lot more finessing to get it past the Whiny Stage to settle down and start working completely.
Maybe you are using too much compound and not working it enough? Were you working it to almost dusting? If so, there should not be a lot of material left to remove.
Absolutely have to have clean pad/s all the time with this material, because it will load up and start making your work look like you described.

Hope it all got sorted out! I have some pics of a couple of Jet Black M5 E39 versions, I will try to post up so you can see how it went from really bad to awesome.

Good Luck !

Dan F
 
Crossfire,

I Detail almost 100 Bimmers a year, tell me again, where are you correcting on your BMW where you need to use the Griot with the 3" pad ? Or are you using the little tiny Griot 3" polisher? Both??

If this is the case, then perhaps part of your challenge is that this tiny buffer cant be doing a whole heck of a lot of good with Meguiars 105 in the first place. Meguiars 105 needs rotation of the pad to work good and finish down nicely. It will, even on Jet Black.
But it will still need further polishing to totally get the clearcoat as smooth as possible.

I agree, on the E46 Model 3 Series Bimmers, the beautiful front fenders are totally curved all the way around the wheelwell in some of the most beautiful flares, that were ever designed. I see these all the time, and have very succesfully used a 5" pad on a Rotary and/or a Flex 3401VRG (for last step polishing), and never needed anything smaller in diameter here.
Same for the doors - there is a lot of flatter areas there that would be better served with a 5" pad than a 3". The top edges of those doors where it is curved at the crease and then the area below the window can also be done very easily with the 5" pad again.

As you probably already know, Jet Black is the softest of the Bimmer paints in the black color pallete, so getting too aggressive with compounds can only give you more work and shave off more microns of clear.

I personally only like to use Menzerna Polishes on Jet Black but if it was extremely wacked, I mean really bad, I might throw on a Purple Foam Wool Pad and very gently work it and check a lot. But this again, is like if I need to remove really bad sanding scraatches, some one else's bad buffing with wool, etc., jobs, ...

Meguiars products can also work, but to me, the 105 compound requires a lot more finessing to get it past the Whiny Stage to settle down and start working completely.
Maybe you are using too much compound and not working it enough? Were you working it to almost dusting? If so, there should not be a lot of material left to remove.
Absolutely have to have clean pad/s all the time with this material, because it will load up and start making your work look like you described.

Hope it all got sorted out! I have some pics of a couple of Jet Black M5 E39 versions, I will try to post up so you can see how it went from really bad to awesome.

Good Luck !

Dan F

I will try the 5 inch on the fender again. Your comment on reducing the 105 to a powder was interesting. I was under the impression that 105 stayed active throughout the buffing process and that you simply made a judgement as to when to stop. Oh and I did do much of the door with the 5 inch (only the top edge with 3).
 
Update: I went back to using the 5 inch CCS on the 6 inch Griot and both the cleanup issues and clouding issues with the 105 seem to be gone. Now the 105 wipes right off. I am getting some annoying dusting though.
 
Crossfire,
...Maybe you are using too much compound and not working it enough? Were you working it to almost dusting? If so, there should not be a lot of material left to remove….

I agree.

If you stop working M105 when it appears to flash, gum up, or dry out, it is a BEAR to remove.

Keep polishing through that stage and you will find a much better finish and the removal is a lot easier.

Search the Truthindetailing archives there was a thread where we had a big discussion of M105. Kevin Brown & Todd chipped in with solid information.

Click here:
http://www.autopiaforums.com/forums/machine-polishing/33398-m105-1st-time-use-wow.html
 
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