Over the counter polish and rubbing compound

S

srt4tocobra

New member
Okay I need some opinions on some over the counter products in the forms of polishes and rubbing compounds? I will be doing everything by hand. My problem is that I do not have enough money to buy the pro products from the internet and I only have access to stores like autozone, advance auto parts, napa, wal-mart, and o'reilly's. What are the best compounds and polishes that I can purchase from any of these stores? I have some light to medium scratches and some water marks. Also are any of the micro fiber rags worth a crap from any of these stores? If not what should I use? Thanks for the help in advance!!
 
srt4tocobra said:
Okay I need some opinions on some over the counter products in the forms of polishes and rubbing compounds? I will be doing everything by hand. My problem is that I do not have enough money to buy the pro products from the internet and I only have access to stores like autozone, advance auto parts, napa, wal-mart, and o'reilly's. What are the best compounds and polishes that I can purchase from any of these stores? I have some light to medium scratches and some water marks. Also are any of the micro fiber rags worth a crap from any of these stores? If not what should I use? Thanks for the help in advance!!
Click to expand...





All sorts of companies make compounds. Meg's supplies their Ultimate compound (Strong) and SwirlX (light), which are pretty popular. I personally like KIT Scratch Out (Light) alot, since its cheap and quite gentle.



Turtle Wax supplies premium grade rubbing compound (Strong) and polishing compound (light). Ignore the TW compounds which come in tubs, as those are not really ment for clearcoats.



All you really need are foam applicator pads, and the MF towels sold at target are probably your best bet.
 
Viking makes some great microfiber products. I just bought a large drying towel from them that is awesome. Their polishing cloths are really nice as well.
 
go to your local walmart and pick up both the megs ultimate compound and swirlx. make sure to shake the ultimate compound bottle up before you buy it, some of the batches/bottles have a thin watery consistency...



RustyBumper said:
Viking makes some great microfiber products. I just bought a large drying towel from them that is awesome. Their polishing cloths are really nice as well.
Click to expand...



agreed...
 
as they said. the viking and vroom (orange ones from target) are good OTC microfiber towels.. vikings cotton terry applicators are good for polishing by hand IMO. foam as they said works too... i used to like the original scratch X for polishing by hand. took forever. but gave good results.. swirl x should be good, scratch X 2.0 is about twice as agressive as the old scratch X, and a small step up in agressiveness from swirl X . mothers cailfornia cold prewax cleaner works well for water spots, but that shouldnt be an issue after using any of the above mentioned products. make sure your using a flat open hand, not your finger tips,thats a big no no.
 
jDizzle said:
the viking and vroom (orange ones from target) are good OTC microfiber towels..
Click to expand...



just to point out as well for those who may not know... the vroom brand from target actually gets their products from carrand and puts the vroom label on them...



edit: the wheel brush, tire applicators, firehose nozzle, etc, are the ones that are manufactured by carrand and private labeled by target with their vroom label on it. i don't believe all the products are, but a good portion of them...
 
BigAl3 said:
just to point out as well for those who may not know... the vroom brand from target actually gets their products from carrand and puts the vroom label on them...
Click to expand...



never knew that ^^^ good to know :xyxthumbs
 
BigAl3 said:
just to point out as well for those who may not know... the vroom brand from target actually gets their products from carrand and puts the vroom label on them...
Click to expand...



Al, how do the Vroom towels perform against the Viking towels?
 
A trip to the local autobody/paint supply sture can vastly expand your notion of "OTC" ;) My mother and her (coolest) sister bought her detailing stuff there way back in the day, so I grew up thinking that was the normal way to shop for such things.
 
Alright thanks guys for all of the replys I will try some of the scratch x, swirl x, and megs ultimate. Hopefully that will take care of it. I just don't want to pay someone to detail the car since I have plenty of time to do it this week. Any opinions on a cheap orbital buffer from any of the places that I listed???
 
srt4tocobra said:
Any opinions on a cheap orbital buffer from any of the places that I listed???
Click to expand...



I'd avoid cheap ones and wait until you can buy something good. More power is better and it can make a huge diff with random orbitals.
 
RustyBumper said:
Al, how do the Vroom towels perform against the Viking towels?
Click to expand...



the grey vroom towels are okay (don't know i they still make them), but i'm not really a fan of their microfibers (alot of people like and have had good results with them), though their drying towel looks and feels pretty nice. the vikings are better quality IMO...
 
I would go to KMart and WalMart. WalMart has the cheapest products of anybody I have found, and sells Armor Alls drying towle that is very soft. i took Al's advice and went to kmart for microfiber, and they have the best MF towels i have found anywhere OTC. I have a couple of Vikings yellow drying towels, 2 green detailing which are very plush, a few red wax/polish removal that are awesome, and an 8 pack of white and blue for 6 bucks. All of these passed the CD test. The red wax removal bleed really bad when washing them though. I have washed them 5 times and they still bleed. The drying towel is $7 and the rest are under $5.
 
Accumulator said:
A trip to the local autobody/paint supply sture can vastly expand your notion of "OTC" ;) My mother and her (coolest) sister bought her detailing stuff there way back in the day, so I grew up thinking that was the normal way to shop for such things.
Click to expand...





This is one way I do it. I have also gotten pretty good deals. I found 3m UF se locally and can get the whole megs Mirror Glaze line up between 4 different stores.



To polish a car by hand will be a daunting task.:sadwavey: It can take hours per panel just to get OK results.



You may want to save up for a PC or find a pro to get the car the way you want it. Then you can use this site to learn how to keep it that way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top