Well, needless to say, I have a lot of paint swirls on my car. I believe they came from washing the car and then whipping it off with the wrong type of towel. Does anyone know how to get rid of these if possible? Is the removal method permanent or will the swirls reappear after I wash the car? I heard someone tell me about compound. Is that a good measure? Let me know
Thanking you all in advance
From my experience, Viper's (that still have the factory clear coat), have some of the hardest paint I've ever worked on. What you can or cannot do with your cars paint and the products, procedures and method of application you choose to use, will be to a great part determined by paint hardness.
What you need to remove a defect such as swirls and scratches in a clear coat finish is an abrasive that breaks down over time and polishes out as you use it. The way this works is that the the abrasive starts out aggressive enough to abrade the finish to remove small particles of paint in an effort to level the highest point of the surface with the lowest depth of the defect. As the diminishing abrasive, (in the Meguiar's line), does this, because it's embodied in a rich oily lubricating film it will leave the finish with a clear, high gloss finish, not scoured, hazy or scratched. Typically foam buffing pads are used to machine apply a product like this to avoid the swirls the fibers of a wool compounding and/or finishing pad will instill.
I have found that because the factory paint on Vipers is so hard, I often must use a rotary buffer to effectively remove any paint defects. It is possible to remove the lightest, or most shallow defects using the porter cable dual action polisher. But the PC is not the end-all, be-all answer for everything as I explain in this thread,
PC+83 not "cutting" it!
below are two of my replies to the above thread,
What you can or cannot do with a dual action polisher will always come down to how hard the paint is.
Last week a forum member brought his clear coated, 1991 Ford Lightening Truck by my house for me to look at. He tried the #83W-8006/PC combo and it had no effect.
I tried that combo and it had no effect. (The truck has horrendous cobweb scratches throughout the entire finish).
So I whipped out the rotary and followed Meguiar's philosophy,
Always use the least aggressive product to get the job done"</font>
First I tried M-83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on a Makita rotary buffer at around 1800 rpms.
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This had absolutely no effect on the finish. Next, I substituted M-84 Compound Power Cleaner, and switched to a W-7006 foam cutting pad with the Makita rotary buffer at the same rpm as the previous test.
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I buffed a small area of the front of the hood, and the passenger's side front top fender and was able to remove the cobweb effect and restore a smooth glossy finish.
Both of us were amazed by how hard the paint was. I suggested he contact Joe at Superior Shine, or Brian at Auto Express and see if either of these guys would be interested in detailing his truck because it was going to take an experienced Professional with years behind the rotary to successfully remove the cobweb-effect.
His other option would be to repaint the truck.
It's important to note that the G-100/Porter Cable Dual Action Polisher is limited in what it can do. It's not the end-all, be-all answer to everything.
In the example above, the rotary buffer with a foam cutting pad, an aggressive cutting compound and time, heat and pressure took a long time to remove the scratches in to small areas...
The dual action polisher didn't make a dent in them... I took before and after pictures, I'll try to dig them up and post them.
What you can or cannot do with a dual action polisher will always come down to how hard the paint is
Mike
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Here's a pictures of Tim's, (aka forum member svt150tim), new-to-him Ford Lightning with a factory clear coat finish over white basecoat.
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Here's what the finish looks like all over the the entire truck,
Horrendous Swirls
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Here are the results after 10 minutes of compounding using #84 Compound Power Cleaner with a W-7006 foam cutting pad on about 1800 rpm.
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We tried to remove the cobweb-effect using the G-100 with a W-8006 polishing pad and some #83 DACP but it had no visible effect. The clear coat finish on this truck is as hard as glass, the only way to remove the swirls in the finish is to machine compound with a rotary buffer.
The point is, there is only so much a dual action polisher like the Meguiar's G-100 can do, once you reach it's limit, and it's not removing the defect, then it's time to substitute a rotary buffer or if you don't own a rotary buffer, and/or the skills to operate one correctly then you will need to take your car to a professional who is trained and experienced with the proper use of the rotary buffer.
Mike
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"You never know what you can do until you try"
If you want to fix it yourself by hand or with a dual action polisher I can offer some suggestions to help you...
Mike
