[HELP] Where did I go wrong?

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

Short story of the problem is, I detailed my car for 8 hours following instructions found on this great site and ended up with swirls (it removed many but no close to all). Swirls on my car are not deep, therefore, I should be able to take them out. Here is what I did so tell me what I did wrong as I have 13 hours to spare Detailing this friday.

First is first, I woke up at 5am to start washing. I live in Florida so heat causes water to evaporate fast leaving watermarks, that's why I start 5am always.

1) I wet and washed my car with my hand (one hand hose other on car) untill I felt no major dirt bumps.
2) Used Dawn(dishwater detergent)/water to wash car and microfiber wash mit (Dawn is really abbrasive so it supposedly removes all previous wax and some polishes).
3) I used a 6 to 1 mixture of water/Zaino Car wash as lubricant and Blue Clay Magic Bar to clay my whole car. I took my time and got real close to my car to look out for attached dirt. I spent a long time clay baring it to get the paint as flat dirt-free as possible.
4) Dawned it again to remove claybar residue.
5) Moved car so it doesnt sit belo water and dried with 100% microfiber towels.
6) Used Porter Cable/Yellow Lake Country VC pad/Menzerna Intensive Polish and applied on an area at a time at 3500rpm. I applied it and kept working on the area until product dusted, then moved to next area.
7) Microfiber towel to take residue away.
8) Changed to Orange pad and PO106FF and did the same. 3500rpm applied and kept working on the area until product dusted and moved to next area.
9) Microfiber towel again.
10) Applied White pad Menzerna Final Polish II at 2500 rpm one area at a time. When finished applying, I removed with microfiber towel in the same order I applied it to allow hazing.

After doing all that I still see swirls! What did I do wrong? I have tons and tons of products and I have all the time in the world to detail, but I just cant seem to remove those damned swirls!

What should I do different or what should I add to my detailing list when I detail this Friday?

I have all color pads and tons of Zaino/Menzerna products. I really need help as I will leave the US for vacation after I finish Detailing Friday. Thank you in andvanced for your help.

[ifoam]

from what i read here, using dawn was not a good idea?

[natebood]

Did you add any pressure on the PC? Also, bump that bad boy up to 5-6.

[01bluecls]

You need to crank the PC up to 6!!! 3.5 is definately not strong enough to work in IP correctly for swirl removal. Do IP again at 6 then FPII at 4 or 5.

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

Thanx for the help. I read that anything heigher than 4.5 was bad so thats why I keep it slow =/ guess bad idea?

About checkin if swirls are removed, the only way I can see them is under the sun so how can I check, would any regular light work? I really dont wanna be taking pictures (flash) and checking them on my camera.

Am I doing right about applying Polish with the Orbital and working on the same area until the Porter Cable removes the product? Which producs require hazing to work? My understanding is that if the product is abbrasive, then you take it out with the same pad and if it is chemical, you let it there till it hazes before you Microfiber towel it, correct?

Thanks for help so far!

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

I need to keep the idea of pressure in mind then. Thought that too much pressur would leave swirls so I just apply very little pressure and 4.5 max as speed.

What direction do you guys follow when applying with orbital?

[bpfoley]

Get a Halogen worklight, almost any hardware store sells a variety of them.

Also, why use dawn to strip anything? The minute you start to polish, it will strip anything off.

Use light pressure (10-20lbs) I had to use a bathroom scale to finally fuigure out how much that really was (far less than I thought!). And then move the polisher slowly!! across the surface. It took me 3 outings with my PC to get the process down and get to feel/hear and know what it was doing at different pressures, speeds.

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

-Tryout: This thing is posting wherever it wants-

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

Originally Posted by bpfoley

Get a Halogen worklight, almost any hardware store sells a variety of them.

Also, why use dawn to strip anything? The minute you start to polish, it will strip anything off.

Use light pressure (10-20lbs) I had to use a bathroom scale to finally fuigure out how much that really was (far less than I thought!). And then move the polisher slowly!! across the surface. It took me 3 outings with my PC to get the process down and get to feel/hear and know what it was doing at different pressures, speeds.

the lbs measurement idea is good, thanx for that. Ill try to get the pictures I used to show the direction I work the PC on.

And aboutt the dawn, I use it to have the metal as clean as possible before polishing. I dont want dirt between Pad and Clear Coat.

[G35_Coupe_6MT]

Oh and BTW - I dont just take the residue with microfiber, I use Zaino Z6 spray to clean it up after each coat.

and I need an answer for this if possible: Am I doing right about applying Polish with the Orbital and working on the same area until the Porter Cable removes the product? Which producs require hazing to work? My understanding is that if the product is abbrasive, then you take it out with the same pad and if it is chemical, you let it there till it hazes before you Microfiber towel it, correct?

[Picus]

You definitely need to use a higher speed to properly break down IP. 3.5 won't do it; in fact I often wish the PC had a speed 7. I'd work it in at speed 3 then immediately move to speed 6 and apply enough pressure that the pad doesn't bog down, but almost does. This will almost definitely remove the swirls but it will also probably leave hazing. Luckily FPII on a white pad at a slow speed with very light pressure will remove the hazing.

Instead of removing residue with Z6 I'd switch to rubbing alcohol mixed 50:50 with water, it'll save you Z6 and it'll likely work better.

Try this on a small area like a fender and see how it goes. I've done quite a few black G35's and IP/orange, FPII/white is pretty much my go to on them; it always seems to do a good job. Cheers.

[awahl63]

Use IP on speed 6 with some pressure