Thank You Autopia!

I

Imatk

New member
Wow I just finished using my 7424 PC and after all of the excellent advice and instruction on this site my results were nearly perfect first time!



I was VERY nervous doing the PC. I was afraid of damaging the paint but I followed the steps many of you guys laid out here and everything went fine.



Granted I didn't have to do the whole car. I only had to do a few problem areas on my hood. (swirl marks and scratches after the body shop "buffed" it)



Anyway my process was to start with a polishing pad and I tried Menzerna FPII. That didn't get the swirls out. So I switched to a light cutting pad (orange) and used my Optimum polish. I was going to go with the Optimum Compound but like many advise here I wanted to do the lightest I could.



The Optimum polish is friggin amazing! It got pretty much everything out! There are still some scratches that can be seen but only from a certain angle. I tried using the Optimum Compound and orange pad a little but it didn't seem to get the very fine scratches out.



Anyway I went back to the Optimum polish and finshed it out. I actually didn't use the Menzerna for a final polish... the Optimum looked great when I was done.



Should I have finished with the Menzerna?



I also don't know if I was "working" the polish enough to finish. It never seemed to really go transparent. It did get much much lighter, but didn't seem to go away like I've seen on videos here... so I hope I did it right... it looks great so I guess I did something right hehe.



Thanks again guys :)
 
Optimum doesn't really "clear out" like other polishes. Once you use it a few times you will know when it is broken down and ready for removal. If you want that extra .5% out of your finish, then yes, you should have finished with FPII, but Optimum finishes out fine and it really takes a trained eye to notice the difference between the two. Glad to hear your first time with the PC was a sucess :)
 
I remember not so long back using my PC for the first time as well.....the results ARE absolutely amazing, and I'm glad it worked for you too :)



I used the Menzerna PO106FF today for the first time, and found that that didn't seem to "break down" to as clear a finish as I'd expected. Plus, it didn't really get rid of those damn swirl marks either (and that was using the SFX-1 spot finish pad).

Time to get the big guns out and order some more abrasive polish I think.
 
Imatk said:
... I actually didn't use the Menzerna for a final polish... the Optimum looked great when I was done.



Should I have finished with the Menzerna?
Click to expand...



Glad to hear you like how it turned out. IMO if it looks good to you then you didn't need to use the Menzerna. It's all about how *you* like the final result and it sounds like you're very happy with it.
 
Yeah... I had very very minor hairline scratches that you can only see from certain angles when I was done.



I don't know if I could have removed them as well but I read on here that sometimes it's best to just get 90 percent of the problem corrected. I think I got more like 97 percent so I was happy.



Now I just want an excuse to use it again :)



I have some very minor rain etching on my hood of my new car that I was thinking about doing but again I wonder if I should leave well enough alone.



What are you guys thoughts?
 
Imatk said:
I have some very minor rain etching on my hood of my new car that I was thinking about doing but again I wonder if I should leave well enough alone.



What are you guys thoughts?
Click to expand...



Etching can be really deep (much more so than you might expect) and thus beyond what's feasible with the PC. For example, my wife's A8 has etching from some kind of nasty water (presumably acid rain but I dunno for sure) and it's resisted some pretty aggressive efforts with the rotary. I ended up deciding to live with it rather than thin the clear too much.
 
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