New member needs help with Silver Acura TSX and P21S products!

[theaznboywunder]

Hey! I`ve recently discovered autopia through google, and I must first off say that this forum is awesome! I`ve already learned alot in the past few days and have decided to join.



Alright, so here`s my situation. I recently purchased a 2006 Acura TSX in Alabaster Silver Metallic. The previous owner was an 86 year old woman who drove it to car washes. I would like to remove those swirl marks as well as the ones made by whoever cleaned the car at the car dealer.







Okay, so I think i`ve the "washing" part down, but I need your help with the polishing and waxing....



My main goals:

1) Keep car care products as consistent as possible

2) Remove swirl marks

3) Provide long lasting paint protection



I can`t really attain the first goal since P21S doesn`t carry a glaze or swirl remover...what swirl remover would you guys recommend? I would prefer something that is the least abrasive as possible, something that will permanently remove swirl marks, not hide them. What about the 3M stuff? Should I use 3M IHG instead of a swirl remover?



I`m pretty sure I have to use the P21S Paintwork cleanser [I]before I remove swirls, correct?



Bottom line: I need some insight on how to wash my car as well as how to polish and wax it.



After buying a jar of P21S concours-like wax, I`m set on using their products. So, would this be good/correct?



1) Meguiars Gold Class Wash with Microfiber hand mitt and 2 bucket procedure.

2) Complete "blow dry" with leaf blower.

3) P21S GEPC. What pad to use?

4) Some kind of swirl remover? 3M IHG or 3M swirl remover or other?

5) P21S Carnuba wax (Again, any pad advice? I`m doing all of this by hand btw).



Sorry for the long post, please forgive the new member. Thank you for reading this and thank you in advance for your help!

[theaznboywunder]

anyone have any recommendations? Thinking about ordering what i need from autogeek soon...

[BigAl3]

wash - gold class

clay - clay magic, megs, mothers clay kit (walmart, AZ, pepboys)

paint correction - megs ultimate compound and swirlx (walmart, AZ, pepboys)

lsp - your choice



(you can find the clay and paint correction products OTC at the places listed above)



do you have a D/A?

[ricka]

might be just me, but i like sealants rather than waxes on silver--especially metallic. found waxes are too warm a look (muted) while the sealants brighten the paint and make the flakes really pop.



i`ve used danase sealant (no cure time), danase wet glaze and upgp (wowo, 12-hour cure). sealants lasts longer (except for collinite line of waxes like 476 or 845)



also sealants tend to not attract dust as much as waxes imho...



for polishing, i`ve enjoyed the results of wolfgang 3.0 total swirl remover. pad dependant meaning you can step it down from orange to white to black and get a great look. 205 might work just as well. good thing about silver is it does hide minor blemishes well. you have to be an ocd to really find them and have to look at it from different lighting angles.



good luck. experimenting is half the fun.

[ohiostate]

After doing my Altima by hand, I told my self there is no way Im going to do this again... The results were good, but I saw scracthes and I knew the only way to get the paint close to perfect was to buy a DA...



My recommendation would to invest in a DA, and read as much as you can on these forums..



There are sticky threads out there that are very informative for us noobs, read those then read them again!



Good luck..

[theaznboywunder]

Were the scratches from polishing the car by hand?



Also, would you guys recommend to hold off on any detailing until I purchase a porter cable 7424? Or would the gloss enhansing paintwork cleanser and whatever polish I decide to choose work acceptably well by hand?



I don`t know, I`ve heard it`s hard to damage paint with the PC, but the acura paint is soft to begin with and I don`t want to do anything to make the swirl marks worse or do anything to the paint that would cause damage in the long run.



Thanks again guys!

[ricka]

you really have to try to mess up paint with a pc. by starting out with the least aggressive pad and polish combo you should be fine. best correction pad sizes for pc`s are 4" pads. anything bigger and the pc starts bogging and just jiggling vs actually rotating. when i went from 5.5 to 4" pads, the difference was very noticeable. 5.5 pads can be used for final finishing jeweling/polishing. also, no more than medium pressure with a pc. go slowly over paint, take your time. be patient. since its your personal car you can take as much time as you wish. when first starting with a pc i began by doing the trunk since its a fairly small area. divided it with 3 taped areas to test for the pad/polish combo. then went to town on the entire car.



again, silver is a great color for masking slight swirls and dirt. sexier than white but doesn`t quite pop like a darker color. always looks best in dawn/dusk light. just depends on your expectations to get it perfect. good news is if you are happy with 80-90% correction, it will look fantastic to 99% of the viewing public.

[Setec Astronomy]

You might want to add a clay step to remove any bonded contaminants that have collected. Also be aware that the wax you have selected may not have the greatest longevity (not clear to me whether you have the original P21S or the 100% carnauba, I`m not really sure if there is a consensus about the 100% lasting longer).



Apparently a good combo OTC available by hand for swirl mark removal is Meguiar`s Ultimate Compound followed by SwirlX (Wal-Mart, etc., about $8 a bottle). You could also use the professional versions, Meguiar`s Mirror Glaze 105 and 205. By hand will be a lot of work, but if you can spare the $16 and a few dollars more for some applicators, it`s worth a try on a spot to see if you like the results and/or the amount of work involved.

[ohiostate]

Agree with Setec, adding a clay step would be useful..



This is what I would do.. . Do it all by hand and see if your happy with the results... If so then no need to spend the money on a pc or g110... But if u plan to stick around these forums, and see the work people do you will be buying a DA very shortly ;)



Always start with the least agreesive pad, and compound..

Read the forums, watch how to video`s (how to us a DA) and you will be saying that does not look as hard as I expected, and will be wanting to try it on your car ;)

[theaznboywunder]

i`m leaning toward the purchase of a PC 7424, but i`m hoping to snag a deal, so im not really rushing it.



I think i`ll take some close up`s of my paint and see what people have to say about it. Maybe i`m just OCD about it, but you can`t see the swirls unless you`re firing fluorescent light and looking at the paint from a 45 degree angle.



My main concern really is that, if I polish the car, i`m using an abrasive. My understanding is the the abrasive will eat away at the clear coat a bit. I`m trying my best to keep this coat intact for the long-term life of the car. Toward the end of my Acura`s life, I don`t want oxidation to get the best of it.



I`ve read that you should polish twice a year...could I polish less often? My number one goal is to get rid of the swirl marks permanently and prevent new ones. Just as equal to this goal is long term protection of the paint.



Any insight on what I should do?



In response to the clay, I was thinking about it, but again, I was deterred because I`m trying my best to not touch the paint as much as possible, but a once-over has revealed that I have to clay the car to get rid of any dirt that will get rubbed into the paint come waxing time.



So,



1) Double bucket wash using Meguiars Gold Class and Wool mitt.

2) Blow Dry with Backpack blower

3) Clay Magic Clay bar with water/detailing spray as lube

4) Double bucket wash again with blowdry

5) Some polish? Optimum or Menzzerna? (still considering hand polish)

6) P21S GEPC

7) P21S concours-like wax.



Another quick question: did i reverse step 5 and 6? Not really sure which i do first.