SuperBee364
New member
Greg Nichols and I just spent the last three days detailing a C5 Corvette (with a partial re-paint) and a Ferrari 360 Modena F1 package.
This gave us an opportunity to try out the new formula M105 and also M205. Here's our experiences...
First, the new M105 does work very well with a DA. I have never seen a PC do so much correction. That's the good news. The bad news is that I was far from impressed using the new M105 with a rotary. I loved the old formula's ability to cut *fast* and cut *hard*. The new formula doesn't do either. It has far less cutting ability, and for any given level of correction, the new stuff is going to take longer to do it. Bummer.
Yes, the new 105 could be considered "easier to use", but so what? There are other Meg's products that fall into the "easy to use" category for those that want "easy to use" products. When I grab a bottle of 105, "ease of use" just doesn't come to mind; cutting fast and hard is what does. I really wish Meguairs would have said, "for those of you having problems with 105, please use product X instead" and left 105's formula alone.
Both new and old 105 seem to have the same finishing ability, and that would fall into the "excellent" category, especially when you consider that they are heavy cut compounds. Well, at least the old formula is a heavy cut compound. I would rate the new stuff at a cut level of 9 compared to the old stuff at 12.
Now to address the current excitement about using DA's and 105.... Yeah, it works. It works really well. You can do some amazing one step correction *and* have it finish off pretty well. And all with a DA. The bad news: Don't throw away your rotary yet. It takes a long, long application time to work 105 from correcting all the way to finishing with a DA. Pack a lunch. I'm just going to abbreviate how we did it, and leave the detailed process to Kevin Brown when he publishes his paper. What we did was to prime the pad very well with 105. Then place a small amount directly to the PC's pad. If your pad is primed well, and you have the proper amount on your pad, you can now put that buffer to paint and work it for about 5 minutes. Yup, that's right.. You can work it for a long time. It didn't start to dust or dry on us until 5 minutes. During that time, you press hard to do the correction step. Keep pressing hard until you have achieved the level of correction desired. Then, just let off on the pressure, and keep letting off on the pressure until you're down to just the weight of the PC. Then do a couple passes with just the weight of the PC. Depending on the hardness of the paint (on two cars we had very hard, medium, and very soft clear to work with due to one car being partially resprayed), you may be rewarded with a completely corrected, darn near LSP ready finish. On other clears, you will have the typical compounding marks and holograms.
Now maybe it's just the fact that it was our first time to try this method, or maybe it's just because this is true... it took us much longer to do the 105 with PC method than it did for us to use the old 105 with a rotary. Much longer. Like.. a really long time. For me, it is still much more time effective to use either old or new 105 with a rotary than to use the PC. But it is great to at least have the ability to use 105 and a PC as an option. It really gives the PC more reach than it has ever had before.
205 is a bit of an enigma to me. It doesn't correct nearly as well as 105, which is no surprise as Meg's rates it as a 4 on their scale of 1 to 12 aggressiveness scale. But it also doesn't seem to finish down as well as 105 does. For me, at least. Even with a no bite pad (which is all I used 205 with) I was not able to get it to finish down acceptably on any clear: hard, medium, or soft. It's important to note that this was with a rotary. I haven't tried it with a PC yet. I'm going to try it with a PC on my car "real soon now."
Now guys, please note that this is just my initial impressions of these products after using them for three days. I am sure that there are other, better ways, techniques, etc. when it comes to using these products. It would be great to hear from others that have had better experiences, more experience, different techniques that work well with these exciting new Meg's products.
This gave us an opportunity to try out the new formula M105 and also M205. Here's our experiences...
First, the new M105 does work very well with a DA. I have never seen a PC do so much correction. That's the good news. The bad news is that I was far from impressed using the new M105 with a rotary. I loved the old formula's ability to cut *fast* and cut *hard*. The new formula doesn't do either. It has far less cutting ability, and for any given level of correction, the new stuff is going to take longer to do it. Bummer.
Yes, the new 105 could be considered "easier to use", but so what? There are other Meg's products that fall into the "easy to use" category for those that want "easy to use" products. When I grab a bottle of 105, "ease of use" just doesn't come to mind; cutting fast and hard is what does. I really wish Meguairs would have said, "for those of you having problems with 105, please use product X instead" and left 105's formula alone.
Both new and old 105 seem to have the same finishing ability, and that would fall into the "excellent" category, especially when you consider that they are heavy cut compounds. Well, at least the old formula is a heavy cut compound. I would rate the new stuff at a cut level of 9 compared to the old stuff at 12.
Now to address the current excitement about using DA's and 105.... Yeah, it works. It works really well. You can do some amazing one step correction *and* have it finish off pretty well. And all with a DA. The bad news: Don't throw away your rotary yet. It takes a long, long application time to work 105 from correcting all the way to finishing with a DA. Pack a lunch. I'm just going to abbreviate how we did it, and leave the detailed process to Kevin Brown when he publishes his paper. What we did was to prime the pad very well with 105. Then place a small amount directly to the PC's pad. If your pad is primed well, and you have the proper amount on your pad, you can now put that buffer to paint and work it for about 5 minutes. Yup, that's right.. You can work it for a long time. It didn't start to dust or dry on us until 5 minutes. During that time, you press hard to do the correction step. Keep pressing hard until you have achieved the level of correction desired. Then, just let off on the pressure, and keep letting off on the pressure until you're down to just the weight of the PC. Then do a couple passes with just the weight of the PC. Depending on the hardness of the paint (on two cars we had very hard, medium, and very soft clear to work with due to one car being partially resprayed), you may be rewarded with a completely corrected, darn near LSP ready finish. On other clears, you will have the typical compounding marks and holograms.
Now maybe it's just the fact that it was our first time to try this method, or maybe it's just because this is true... it took us much longer to do the 105 with PC method than it did for us to use the old 105 with a rotary. Much longer. Like.. a really long time. For me, it is still much more time effective to use either old or new 105 with a rotary than to use the PC. But it is great to at least have the ability to use 105 and a PC as an option. It really gives the PC more reach than it has ever had before.
205 is a bit of an enigma to me. It doesn't correct nearly as well as 105, which is no surprise as Meg's rates it as a 4 on their scale of 1 to 12 aggressiveness scale. But it also doesn't seem to finish down as well as 105 does. For me, at least. Even with a no bite pad (which is all I used 205 with) I was not able to get it to finish down acceptably on any clear: hard, medium, or soft. It's important to note that this was with a rotary. I haven't tried it with a PC yet. I'm going to try it with a PC on my car "real soon now."
Now guys, please note that this is just my initial impressions of these products after using them for three days. I am sure that there are other, better ways, techniques, etc. when it comes to using these products. It would be great to hear from others that have had better experiences, more experience, different techniques that work well with these exciting new Meg's products.
) That's the way I feel for intermediate and finishing polish. Not quite the same for compounding/correcting, which is when you are very dependent on the pad to deliver extra umph for correction. I generally use PFW whenever I can because it finishes so well. If PFW won't cut it, I'll step up to a yellow Edge wool, and if that's not enough, a black Edge wool. But for finishing... zero bite all the time.