Help:(

[popsroberts]

Well, today I did the whole detail routine with my wifes lexus. Her car was silver and it turned out nicely. I dawn washed, applied smr and p21s pcl with the pc and waxed with zaino. Came out great. Here`s the problem. My brother came down and I decided to help him out with his swirls on his car. His car is graphite black in color. Anyways, did the whole wash routine and then started to polish his car with the pc and the yellow pad with smr. The quarter panel came out nice but here is where the problem took place. As I was doing his door, a scratch was left. Im sure it was the pc that did it. I just dont understand how. The panel was completely clean and first thing I thought was that I had trapped some sort of debris. I was soo upset and aplogized to my brother. He took it in stride and was nice about it. Anyways, we washed the pad just in case there was something trapped in it. He proceeded to polish the hood when lightning striked again. For some reason, he had put a couple scratches in his hood. Now here is my theory. It was warm outside and I noticed that the smr was drying out really fast. My best guess is that the polish did dry out immediately and the pad trapped bits of the hardened polish and that caused the scratches. I have no reason to think otherwise. The car was extremely clean and did not have any residue or any other objects on it. Does this seem reasonable? I am now afraid to do my orient blue BMW again because of this:( I do remember that I did my car in the shade and the smr did not dry as fast as it did today

[imported_Tony]

The reason you described is the reason many of us perfer to clay before polishing. Take a plastic bag and put the bag over your finger and run your finger across the surface. If you feel any thing that is not smooth then you need to clay. The best way to know the difference is to clay an area and then feel the clayed area compared to the unclayed area using the baggie trick.



No offense meant just trying to say it is better to be safe than sorry and thats why we love clay. Do a search on clay.



A good procedure would be to do a good wash and many of us like the Dawn wash the first time( but some differ) then clay then polish (SMR BTW Which SMR are you using) then rewash and apply a polymer then top with wax.



good luck



If you will update your profile and list a location it will help us understand your weather conditions.

[shaf]

I`m not convinced SMR will dry into hard rock-like bits when dried like that. My guess would be that you picked up contamination from either not claying, or from the environment. When I`m polishing a surface outdoors I`m always watching for dust on the surface or I give it a quick wipe with a MF before I work on that small area.



Be extra careful in windy conditions, and if you find the polish is drying out sooner than you`d like you can give it a shot of QD to re-wet it so you can work it longer.

[popsroberts]

Thanks for the input guys. I live near Monterey Ca. The weather is usually real pleasant. It was prolly in the low 70`s today, wind not a factor. I used 3m SMR for dark cars. Im sure you guys are probably right and that it prolly wasnt the smr drying. I did clay my 330I before I polished it. My wifes car was not clayed but her color is way more forgiving. We did not clay his car though.

[imported_Tony]

Since you can not sleep you might as well watch Davids video on the use of the PC:http://autopia-carcare.com/lib/autopia/Buffing768.wmv