`04 black Tribute...fixing dealer swirls

[White95Max]

My uncle brought me his Tribute that had terrible swirls and holograms in it from dealer prepping. He basically just wanted the swirls removed/minimized, and paint protection as well.



So the process ended up as:



SSR2.5/yellow via PC on 6

SSR2.5/green via rotary on 2.5

SSR2/green via PC on 6

NXT



The swirls were not coming out very well at all. The original plan was to do SSR2.5, RMG, and WG/UPP, then possibly top with Nattys.

Here`s how it turned out...



Before polishing:











After SSR2.5 via rotary







After all polishing:

[White95Max]

A few after shots:















There`s my new aluminum workbench/stepladder. That`s such a handy tool to have around, especially when trucks/SUVs are around!

[gav'spurplez]

wow, so much for only "minimizing" the swirls



looks good :xyxthumbs

[Thomas Dekany]

[J.J.]

Did you do the whole car with the rotary or just the hood?



Looks great!



JJ

[White95Max]

I did the horizontal surfaces with the rotary, since those seemed to be the worst areas. I did one fender with the rotary too, but I left some hologramming, and I don`t think the rotary was really necessary, so I went back to the PC for the vertical panels.



Some of the panels had swirls that could only be minimized. Also, there were a few RIDS that could only be minimized. My guess is that those were caused by improper washing. I saw a deep scratch across most of the hood, and did a test. I stood on the side of the vehicle next to the front fender and extended my arm over the hood. If I moved my hand in an arc over the hood, the scratch followed it almost perfectly. So I determined that it`s most likely that the owner dragged a piece of dirt/grit across the hood to cause that scratch.

[JasonC8301]

Flippin awesome! I love Mazda paint, really hard, but some dealer`s seem to like to f stuff up.



One thing I noticed with Mazda is the orange peel....



Does your uncle prefer the Mazda Tribute emblems on the trunk? I took them off. Got in the way and without them the car looks a lot cleaner.

[White95Max]

I don`t know if he likes the emblems or not. He plans to wax the car himself every month or two, so he might appreciate the convenience of not having the emblems in the way.

[X-Trail]

Good swirl removing. The paint looks really good. So how long it took you to remove all those swirls???

[White95Max]

I spent over 6 hours just polishing the vehicle.

[stilez]

Very impressive. That paint looks damn near perfect!





Now get your uncle on a good washing regimen .

[White95Max]

My uncle said his sponge is being retired to wheel cleaning use, and he`s going to buy an Excel MF mitt like I use.

[vwdgood]

damn.. very impressive

[imported_guapsnaman]

Great job on the car, just have a couple of questions.



After using 2.5 with the yellow, what does 2.5 with the green do. I was thinking that you would want to remove the hazing caused by the yellow pad.



Or was it that you wanted to do a second pass with a lighter cutting pad?



Thanks.

[White95Max]

I followed with the green pad because I didn`t think I would need the yellow pad for that step since I was using the rotary. Also, the yellow pad is more prone to hopping when used with the rotary.



There really was no hazing from the yellow pad, even with SSR2.5.