Beginning pad choice for Essence on Ford Paint

About to use CarPro Essence Extreme* on my new Maverick. It’s the first time to use this product and first time polishing this paint. Tried to see if there was a consensus on the hardness of the Rapid Red Trimetallic that’s on it. Saw a lot of soft to medium but also a couple of hard. Most of the comments were on Mach E forums fwiw. Doesn’t seem to be too soft so far in wear as I haven’t noticed a lot of swirling in use. However we’ve only had it about a month and a half. Was thinking of starting out with a CarPro gloss pad (bought just to try it out with this) but also see a lot of use with microfiber pads.

where would you start out for your test section for this application?


* not the plus version.

Eta: will be using my griot’s G9 is it doesn’t overheat paired with Rupes ibrid nano for smaller sections.

Start with a polishing pad an adjust from there. That will tell you if the paint is hard or soft.

The gloss pad would be a waste of time IMO. Just a regular orange foam polishing pad. Yellow if rupes etc

If you need to do cutting and correcting, a stiff orange pad is a good one to do a test spot with.

Not the best at trying to get paint condition photos but here goes…
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Originally Posted by Cadfael

Not the best at trying to get paint condition photos but here goes…
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What is condition you see? If no swirls or marring just a pure polishing pad will do to get the adhesion promoter down.

No need removing any clearcoat if your paint looks good.


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Couldn’t tell the difference between using the Rupe’s Yellow and CarPro gloss pads. Shine,reflections, and metallic pop was good from both. Pictures later I hope.

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Looks like a nice garage. I wish I had one.

If there`s no difference in the 2 pads i would just use the gloss pad, captain obvious lol

The gloss pad is super soft however so it may not breakdown essence so quickly but i`m probably splitting hairs.

That said i doubt the yellow pad and essence is removing any measurable clearcoat. You can probably use that combo 50x on car paint.

I would just use the pad you like using the most - i`m not a fan of the rupes yellow for instance - especially on vertical panels.

For as square as this truck looks it’s got very little flat panels really. Ended up using the little Rupes iBrid nano more than I expected. Had the 2.75” pad on there and only have yellow and blue for it in this size. Could have probably used the smaller pad in some places but was too lazy to change the head. I do have white pads in the 1.5” size.

Yeah, nice garage was a must. 3 slot with ductless. Only problem is the lighting is terrible. Makes it virtually impossible to do a coating in there. Got rushed doing the CanCoat and noticed a couple of high spots but not going to worry about them on my wife’s car.

Results…
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Coming along nicely.

Sure does look purdy!


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Gotta love darker colors. The turnaround is more striking.

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Originally Posted by Cadfael

Results…
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Ahh, now your hooked.