How often do you polish..

[lbls1]

Once a year.

[cwcad]

Used to be three to four times a year. Have cut it down to three or less ayear. Thanks to Accumulator's constant reminders to awoid marring it will be less and less as I conform to the axion, "First do no Harm."

It will be a while before I do not ever polish. Yet, I am working on it.

It takes me six hours to polish my truck when I do a full detail.

[toml]

I only have to do it once a year, hitting only the areas where there is visible marring with somthing like Optimum Polish or Compound. I'll give the entire car a once over with either VM or AIO.

BTW, this is one of the best threads I've read here on polishing. Something to keep in mind ...

[MCA]

My car is a 2003 model, but I have only mechanically deep polished twice (IP/FPII)...I try to focus on wash/drying technique to keep the marring down. However, I chemically polish (AIO or ColorX) at least once every 3 months to remove old layers of LSP.

[wannafbody]

If you're spending 6-8 hours or more polishing maybe it's time to consider stepping up to a rotary

[EdLancer]

I do it about once every two years with Meg's #82 and takes about 5 hours. While using a mostly touchless washing method with a foamgun, pressure washer and DI water rinse I dont really physically touch the paint. I wash with a mitt and dry with a WW MF once a month if I have the time for a really good wash. Since my car is a daily beater that sits outside 24/7 even through the harsh Canadian winter, it is in better condition than most newer cars. I usually leave a 1/2" of snow when I do use a snow brush in the winter, that helps alot with avoiding swirls marks.

[Accumulator]

EdLancer- No doubt about it, having it outside 24/7 in your area poses a lot of challenges!

WannaFbody- Would you believe it takes me all that time even *with* a rotary Good thing I'm not doing this as a business! Of course with silver I have to spend forever inspecting whereas I could see stuff a lot easier when I was still driving black cars (guess that's "the blessing and the curse", for both colors).

[Hey, Moe!]

Boy, did Accumulator hit the nail on the head!! Three days ago, I decided to work on my dark-gray metallic Focus. Wash, clay, wash (love the foamgun, and two buckets), spot polish with SSR 2.5 on a few localized spots, whole car with SSR 1, RMG, and finish with Natty's Blue.

I like the overall look of the car. The RMG does add wetness, likely because of the oils, and the Natty's Blue does make the car look even darker.

But, when the sun was out yesterday, nice and bright, I noticed that I still had swirls on the decklid (which I surmised I did beforehand), and still a very minor issue on the hood.

I am thinking two things. One, is that I need to work very, "very" slowly with the PC. The two hours I spent in the polishing phase means that I went way too fast, and didn't let the polish do its job.

Second, is that I gotta look really, really! hard from all angles on my gray car to see the defects. It's not like watching tennis balls land on or near a line (my "other" job). I gotta STARE at the surface to see what's up.

So, I can learn from this. Since the car looks "better than acceptable," I will let it go for a few weeks. I have some time next month where I can simply devote a whole day to doing it better.

And, stare at the paint I will. I use bifocals to read reallly small print, so I guess that's where I gotta go.

But, I could see "everything" easily with my last (black) car. But, so could everyone else.

There IS "a blessing and a curse."

[JDookie]

How often do you machine polish (not waxing)? And how long it took to complete?

As needed, and I stopped keeping track of the time. The time it takes to achieve the results you want really doesn't matter as long as you get the results. Sometimes it takes an hour, and sometimes it takes days. Just depends on what you're doing.