[lokii_83]

Originally Posted by lokii_83

I will review again your inputs today and finalise what to buy and from whom.

Thank you.

I went ahead and bought Collinite 845, and other products from Greenzcare, the package came properly and there was no damage. The guy named Hari called me to confirm the order over email and he gave assurance of proper delivery.

Now the weekend story, with all products in hand, I had a first ever detailing.
Products used are as follows.
Wash - 3M car shampoo
Clay - Gyeon Q2M Clay
Clay Lube - Optimum No Rise
Wax - Collinite 845

Overall it was pleasant experience, since the car is 10 months old and odo reading of 6K, car didn't have much paint contamination.
I tried best to follow the guidelines/videos but I think I was bit quick to buff off the wax before it was dried, I wasn't ware of the finger swipe test and later realised I hope its a long journey and lot to learn.

Sharing few pics. Appreciate your comments and tips.

[saisailendra]

Originally Posted by lokii_83

I tried best to follow the guidelines/videos but I think I was bit quick to buff off the wax before it was dried, I wasn't ware of the finger swipe test and later realised I hope its a long journey and lot to learn.

Sharing few pics. Appreciate your comments and tips.

Great job indeed. Please don't follow the videos on YouTube for Collinite 845. They, I noticed, use a lot of product which is unnecessary. And in my experience, applying it with foam is easier than applying it with a microfiber.

You can find more details here. I did put down the procedure that I use, in the link. You may try that way too. Might save sometime and some product.

[Thilak29]

I spent good three hours detailing car. This was my first time with a powered Polisher (Bosch GPO 950) , I realised it's more back breaking than routine elbow greasing. The outcome of sweat is seen in attached picture.

Also, I used Meguiar ultimate polish to bring shine.
At the end of polishing, to my surprise the polisher sponge (originally white) had picked red from car surface. While I am glad that car felt newer and shinier, it also surprised and concerned me. Can anyone help me understand why ?

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

At the end of polishing, to my surprise the polisher sponge (originally white) had picked red from car surface. While I am glad that car felt newer and shinier, it also surprised and concerned me. Can anyone help me understand why ?

You get paint on your pad in one of the 3 below mentioned ways:

Single stage factory paint
Repaired panel painted without clearcoat
You were too aggressive with your polishing and destroyed your clearcoat

AFAIK (because we have the exact same color Brio in our extended family) , Honda Brio never came with a single stage paint. So we can safely remove that option.

Was any panel of your car dented / painted by a garage? If yes, then it's point 2. Someone took a shortcut and did not spray clearcoat.

Else you applied too much pressure, destroyed your clearcoat, and ate into your basecoat. The paint where the clearcoat has been removed from shall oxidize and go dull faster than the areas where there's clearcoat remaining.

[VWAllstar]

Originally Posted by blackasta

You get paint on your pad in one of the 3 below mentioned ways:

Single stage factory paint
Repaired panel painted without clearcoat
You were too aggressive with your polishing and destroyed your clearcoat

A very informative post. Must be helpful to him however it's a good understanding to all. With these points -

- How does owning a white coloured car make more sense over a bright colour like Red or Blue?

- Are factory colour / clear coat that sensitive to be destroyed by a polisher?

- Would be really good to find the real reason here, owners with such bright colours would be more skeptical to use a polisher themselves.

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

- How does owning a white coloured car make more sense over a bright colour like Red or Blue?

- Are factory colour / clear coat that sensitive to be destroyed by a polisher?

- Would be really good to find the real reason here, owners with such bright colours would be more skeptical to use a polisher themselves.

Q1 - nothing - if you destroy the clearcoat, you shall touch the base-coat. Just that white paint on white pad is kind of difficult to notice does not make any difference.

Q2 - Yes. Factory clearcoat is about 1-2 mm thick, and can easily be burnt through by incorrect usage of a polisher (more so using a rotary polisher than a DA or random orbital polisher)

Q3 - again, bright or white color makes no difference. See Q1.

[Pferdestarke]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

How does owning a white coloured car make more sense over a bright colour like Red or Blue?

White masks minor scuffs and swirls to a great extent where as darker colours project the paint defects very easily.

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Are factory colour / clear coat that sensitive to be destroyed by a polisher?

Factory done clear coats tend to be very thin 50 - 75 microns, where as repainted panels tend to have much thicker clear coats.

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

owners with such bright colours would be more skeptical to use a polisher themselves.

I recommend practising machine polishing on a painted scrap car panel for better understanding of how things work before attempting on actual cars.

[Thilak29]

Originally Posted by blackasta

You get paint on your pad in one of the 3 below mentioned ways:

Originally Posted by blackasta

Qif you destroy the clearcoat, you shall touch the base-coat.
Q2 - Yes. Factory clearcoat is about 1-2 mm thick, and can easily be burnt through by incorrect usage of a polisher (more so using a rotary polisher than a DA or random orbital polisher).

Thanks blacksta.

Honda factory paint quality was excellent for these batch of Brios. However there were some local paint job done part of scratch removal and I am not sure if that was a shoddy job. I notice that its one panel where this issue was seen.

When car touches 1 lakh km i intend to give a full coat of paint at local Honda service and also get some minor part replacements done.

However pertinent question is , How to be safe with these polishers ? Are there safety tips or links you could point to.

thanks in advance.

[saisailendra]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

However pertinent question is , How to be safe with these polishers ? Are there safety tips or links you could point to.

Honda's paint looks great, but it is a known fact (if we dig into some detailing stuff), that Honda paint is extremely soft. This means it's very easy to remove deep scratches with a compound, a tad bit difficult to get a super (expert level) gloss and it's very easy to burn through the clear coat. In contrast, Volkswagens are known to have very hard paint. So compounding and polishing them takes time and more aggressive compounds.

So, now that you know you're dealing with a soft clear coat, you need to be extra careful while you try to polish the car. Some safe tips I've come across are :

• Use low speeds on the machine, be it a DA polisher or a rotary like you have. High speeds will generate a lot of heat and if the movement is not quick enough, the clear coat will be gone in few seconds.
• Always keep moving your machine / arm and never leave the spinning pad at one spot. (As a general rule irrespective of paint hardness)
• Start with the least aggressive pad and least aggressive compound. Do a test area first. If the pad and compound combination doesn't yield you desired results, step up the aggressiveness by one step of pad or compound and test again. Once you find a sweet combination, you can polish the car with that. Meguiars ultimate polish you used is fine enough to start. Be careful with pad aggressiveness too.
• Always be vigilant of the temperature of the pad and panel. Getting warm after polish is normal. But if it's too hot, it's not a good thing. Give it a break, wait for few minutes and start again.
• For enthusiast level & all practical purposes - don't try to get 100% perfect paint. If you see a scratch or two here and there, don't chase it. You don't want to remove a significant amount of clear coat for removing one scratch. If it's a garage queen, then fine. But if it's a daily driver, no matter how careful you be, you'll find swirls within a month or two. So try to get a reasonable finish and you'll have enough clear coat left to regularly polish the car for several years. If you try to get 100% perfect paint, you won't have much clear coat left to polish her again and again.
• Let the polisher do the job for you. Don't put much weight on the polisher. Don't put pressure on it. Let it glide over the panel. It comes with experience.
• Try to divide the work. Don't try to do the entire car in one go. That will make you tired and the finish will take a severe hit. Take breaks, energize yourself and go for the next session.
• Pad size - try to get a medium sized pad (~4"). This size, I feel is good enough for those small contours as well as the larger panels. It might need more passes on the larger panels, but the machine is bit more controllable, I felt

.

Hope these points help. Others are welcome to add more to the list.

[VWAllstar]

Tried hand polishing & waxing for the first time. Had foam washed the car thoroughly two days ago using a jet spray. Yesterday before polishing cleaned the surface with waterless wash by Wavex. Then applied Meguiars Ultimate Polish and wiped it cleaned immediately post applying it. Then applied Turtle Wax and wiped it dry. Few queries: (This is the first time I have tried it myself, so excuse if queries look basic)

1. Should the polish be applied with a lot of pressure?
2. The surface has got a good shine however swirl marks are still there. The car is only 16 months old and was been detailed last year.
3. Did not use a compound. However with polish I believe the minor swirls should have gone.

Please share your thoughts on it and also few tips for Hand polishing and waxing the car. Few pics post the effort. In the 2nd pic you can see a mark, not able to get that off.

[dealer]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

1. Should the polish be applied with a lot of pressure?
2. The surface has got a good shine however swirl marks are still there. The car is only 16 months old and was been detailed last year.
3. Did not use a compound. However with polish I believe the minor swirls should have gone.

Please share your thoughts on it and also few tips for Hand polishing and waxing the car. Few pics post the effort. In the 2nd pic you can see a mark, not able to get that off.

The paint looks great. The wax seems to have worked well and brought out a beautiful shine. To answer your questions -
1. Light/Medium pressure is enough when using meguiars polish.
2. The polish works well for mild swirls but requires a lot of time and effort. I too used to polish by hand and to get rid of swirls you really need to put in alot of elbow grease. For isolated areas it is okay to put in this time but if there are swirls all over the car, it's better to get a quick polish done from a good detailer.
3. Compound acts like an agressive polish. When using it by hand, I doubt it makes a difference but with a polisher it certainly does.

[Mr. Nobody]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Tried hand polishing & waxing for the first time. Had foam washed the car thoroughly two days ago using a jet spray. Yesterday before polishing cleaned the surface with waterless wash by Wavex. Then applied Meguiars Ultimate Polish and wiped it cleaned immediately post applying it. Then applied Turtle Wax and wiped it dry. Few queries: (This is the first time I have tried it myself, so excuse if queries look basic)

1. Should the polish be applied with a lot of pressure?
2. The surface has got a good shine however swirl marks are still there. The car is only 16 months old and was been detailed last year.
3. Did not use a compound. However with polish I believe the minor swirls should have gone.

Please share your thoughts on it and also few tips for Hand polishing and waxing the car. Few pics post the effort. In the 2nd pic you can see a mark, not able to get that off.

I also use Megs ultimate polish. You need to be using mild pressure and make 6-8 passes on the panel for removing the swirls as also mentioned on the bottle.

[Pferdestarke]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

The surface has got a good shine however swirl marks are still there.

Polish is good for removing very superficial paint defects and minor swirls. Also, the final output depends on a lot of factors viz.

• Pre-paint correction preparation (claying, decontamination).
• Paint cutting ability of the product.
• Cutting ability of the pad used.
• Technique used.
• Paint hardness.

For heavy defect and deep swirl removal, I suggest you to use a compound (Meguiar's Ultimate Compound) and a cutting face of trifoam applicator pad or a terry towel.

But then again, you might not apply even pressure through out the panel while doing it by hand.

Hence divide each panel into smaller sections and work on each section for making it a bit easier.

[VWAllstar]

Originally Posted by Pferdestarke

Polish is good for removing very superficial paint defects and minor swirls. Also, the final output depends on a lot of factor

Thanks for the reply. Today tried to polish and wax the remaining panels. Started polishing with a perfect weather and unpredictably rain played a spoilt sport. Could finish the polishing however to just about 75% of my satisfaction. The surface especially the roof wasn't completely dry when I polished it. Hopefully it is true that Polish (Meguiars Ultimate Polish) does not need curing time. Could not wax and the car is parked uncovered under the rains

Will use a mild waterless wash by Wavex and wipe dry the car tomorrow. If weather permits, will wax the car properly. Hopefully all the hard work in hand polishing the car hasn't gone completely waste.

I read your thread on detailing your Abarth. Arguably one of the best threads on detailing especially of a very difficult (rare and handsome) Black Car with stickers all around. Would have been good if you had added details with regards to Time (ex: Time taken, post 30 minutes of polishing the wax was applied and so forth) Nevertheless a very comprehensive and intuitive thread to read

[Pferdestarke]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Hopefully it is true that Polish (Meguiars Ultimate Polish) does not need curing time.

Good job there mate! Polishes don't need curing time, they need working time. Curing time is for LSP products.

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Will use a mild waterless wash and wipe dry the car tomorrow. If weather permits, will wax the car properly.

I would suggest you to do panel wipe with 12% IPA or even better if done with CarPro Eraser.

This step removes residual polishing oils from the paint so that LSP binds well to the clear coat.

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

I read your thread on detailing your Abarth. Arguably one of the best threads on detailing

Thanks bud! I'm glad you liked it!

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Would have been good if you had added details with regards to Time (ex: Time taken, post 30 minutes of polishing the wax was applied and so forth)

I wanted to make it appear simple hence didn't elaborate much on the details.

The entire detailing process took 48 hours time. Let me give a timeline of the process:

[Day 1]

7 AM to 8AM: Wash

8 AM to 9 AM: Claying

9 to 9:30 AM: Masking

9:30 to 10 AM: Took a break

10 AM to 10:45 AM: Wet sanding

11 AM to 1:30 PM: Compounding (I took a mandatory break between each block to clean pads, let the man and machine cool down!)

1:30 PM to 2:30 PM: Lunch break

2:30 PM to 3:00 PM: Panel wiping and inspect for residual defects

3:00 PM to 5:30 PM: Polished entire car with multiple small breaks in between

5:30 PM to 6:00 PM: Break

6:00 PM to 6:30 PM: Applied first coat of Meguiars NXT sealant

6:30 PM to 6:50 PM: Curing time

6:50 PM to 7:30 PM: Buffed the sealant, covered the car and concluded for the day

[Day -2]

2:00 PM to 4:00 PM: Engine bay cleaning and Interior detailing

5:00 PM: Uncovered the car, did a quick wipe with ONR and applied second coat of Meguiar's NXT sealant

[Day-3]

4:00 PM: Wiped with ONR and applied a coat of Collinite 845