water etching, more cut or repaint?

M

markw78

New member
I worked this with the #3 victory wax (thier most aggressive of a 3 stage polish) by hand with a mf towell and a good deal or pressure. These are all over the car, I think I'm SOL without going to maybe some M105 and a 4" yellow cutter on my PC, but I may be at the rotary/wool/repaint stage with them :(



A pic of the etching I was working...

wateretch1.jpg




A pic showing the cutting done by the polish at the etching. Doesn't even seem to be making much of a dent on the etch.

wateretch2.jpg




:sign by water spots. Now I know!
 
use a different polish. I've never heard of victory wax before, so I'm going to assume it's just some weak, cheap, OTC stuff.
 
yah it is pretty crappy, came from Woot, even new its $40 for an entire kit.



I was going to order some M105 for this and finish it with Z-PC instead of M205 (since I already have the Z-PC). M105 and an orange 4" pad? I don't think I bought any more yellows, so all I have there is a 6.5" yellow. I do have 4" and 5.5" oranges coming tomorrow.



Off to find something... I just clayed the car yesterday and she will need to drive to work later this week, I don't want the car going out 100% unprotected AGAIN before I can hit it again and get some sealant on it!!



Any suggestions on where to buy M105 OTC? Or something that may work better / in it's place? I could do it tomorrow after work if I don't need to wait on another order =/



Thanks for the reply I suspected that may be the case.
 
Searched all over but didn't find anything useful local on a Sunday. I picked up a tub of TW Rubbing compound, debating on if I want to try it or not. Trying to read up, it's pretty aggressive people say.



I could go back and get some Meguiars Ultimate Compound I believe one place had that also.
 
markw78- I hate to say this, but your pic looks like you're right on the verge of some major clearcoat failure (looking at the chips in the top photo). I dunno...I'd worry that if you take off enough clear to level the etching you'll also precipitate total failure.



Unless you're ready to repaint, I'd think twice about getting really aggressive.



Note that often wetsanding works better for stuff like this because the polishing can sometimes follow the depression of the etching and cut the whole thing evenly, when what you want is to cut the surrounding areas down while not taking much more clear out of the depressions (hope that made sense).



But by the time you wetsand, compound, than polish, you'll be taking off a whole lotta clear.



FWIW, I have nasty water etching on the roof of my wife's A8. I hammered it with the rotary for a few very aggressive passes, with little improvement to show for it. She agreed that she'd rather have thick clear, so we decided to *not* correct it further (the next step woulda been sanding). Some stuff it's best to simply live with.
 
Thanks Accumulator. That's what I was worried about and the more I read the scarier it gets :)



There are spots like that all over the car. It's been an outdoor Texas car it's entire life, sun, heat, hail, and I'm not sure it's ever been waxed in 10 years. Perhaps hard Toyota clear is what's kept it that good that long...



Maybe I'll just get the haze out with the Z-PC on the DA and call it done after some z2. Sure would make it easier!!
 
whoops...



whoops.jpg




I wonder if that is from the Z-PC or the Victory Wax #3, is Z-PC capable of that? was using some crappy white pad my PCXP came with, probably not the best choice.



I worked the Z-PC in until it was clear/gone. At first I was having bad dusting, then I started using less product and hitting it with a spray of water along with the Z-PC on the pad, this stopped the dusting and seemed to make it work a whole lot better... Worked it in until it was clear/gone then wiped. Didn't see these til after I waxed. If that's not from a DA then it's from the clay... I didn't do any hand polishing.
 
Where in TX are you? You might try going to the Meguiar's site to see if you can locate a dealer near you. M105 falls under their Professional product line. Make sure that you have that choice selected when you use their locator. You could also see if there might be a Optimum dealer near you, as well. Optimum products are great.
 
markw78- Better redo that with a decent pad and the appropriate product (not sure what that'd be as I'm not familiar with the paint on your car).



I'd make sure you're using the product properly too; I've never used ZPC but the method you used with it wouldn't be *my* way of working any of my products.
 
I have no idea what I'm doing though :)



I used a normal up down / left right pattern with 50% overlap, until it was clear. If I tried to wipe it before it was clear and dry, it just hazed bad...



I got my assorted 5.5" and 4" css pads today, I went to a local paint supply and they only had Meg's 82, 83, and 85... looked like the same thing as 105 but no idea. Just going to order some 105/205 and have it 2-dayed I guess.



should I use the 105 and an orange pad? or white pad?
 
markw78- Uhm, I don't want to sound harsh here, but IMO you should never do much of *anything* unless you have a complete understanding of it first. In this case it means which pad to use, what speed, and how long to work the ZPC.



It sounds like there's a fine line between when the ZPC is sufficiently broken down (so as to not micromar the paint) and when it's overworked (too dry to buff off easily).



You're not still using that same pad that came with the PC are you?



I don't know from ZPC but, based on your experiences with that, I'd sure be leery of using M105 on that paint. If ZPC is marring it, M105 might *really* cause problems.



Wild guesses, based on what people often do: you're probably using too much product and you're almost certainly working too large an area.
 
phew! no pics yet, my server crashed a couple days ago :(



All that mess in that last pic cleaned up amazingly well with only M205 on a white, 5.5" pad. After such luck there I picked out a nasty little scratch on the trunk lid, which happened to have one of the water spot etchings next to it.



For this I swapped to 4" pads and started with orange and the M205 because I knew the white would not cut it here. This didn't quite do it either, so I got the M105 out :) Such a difference in working with the M105 vs M205, the 105 kept drying out on me... Texas heat (even in the garage) and the work lamps 5 feet away were to blame I think, so I hit the pad with a light spray of water, seemed to help. I also quickly learned with a smaller pad, you need to work a smaller area...



It didn't do much more, so I switched to the M105 on an orange pad. I blended the scratch nicely I think, the water spot etching is still there though, and one tiny piece of it turned white, I'm guessing a little spot of clear coat failure I caused on the edge of the etching...



Much to my amazement, there were no visible scratches/swirls/marring in the paint after the M105 and orange... this Toyota corolla clear must be something!! Still, I finished it up with M105+white, then M205+white, then some ZPC+black.



The ZPC+black left what looks like tiny tiny very faint water spots all over the paint. Even after wiping with some QD, I'm not sure if they will show up in the picture... We'll see.



<heads outside to hit it with some M205+black pad to rid of the tiny faint spotting>



Ok so they are all over the paint - even in spots I didn't do. It does look like the starting of clear coat failure and is *slightly* worse in the area I just worked on.



Got to love learning cars... 99 corolla getting sold/traded soon.



Just put on a layer of Z5 filler, waiting the 15min then wipe off... then some #845 to finish it off.



Then to fix my server so I can post some pics :) Took a few shots between each stage.
 
markw78 said:
..Much to my amazement, there were no visible scratches/swirls/marring in the paint after the M105 and orange... this Toyota corolla clear must be something!! Still, I finished it up with M105+white, then M205+white, then some ZPC+black..
Click to expand...



Good move, doing the M205 and ZPC even though you didn't see a need to :xyxthumbs



Under the right lighting (e.g., dark environment and a 3m SunGun), the micromarring from M105 is really something, even on much harder clears than yours. It's just that it doesn't show under most lighting conditions.
 
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