likelyhood of removing clearcoat with a pc on a scion?

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xnevergiveinx

New member
i have a 7336 with the sonus pads. i use an orange pad at speed 4 with medium pressure and sonus sfx-2 to remove swirls from my indigo ink pearl scion tC. if i make 5 passes, lets says 5 seconds per each 1x1 foot area, what is the possibilty that i am wearing my clearcoat thin?



the reason i'm so concerned is that scions have cheap thin soft clearcoats
 
Probably zero. My GTP has gotten PowerGlossed with a rotary twice, buffed with Optimum or equivalent maybe 3 or 4 times, and FPII via rotary probably 10-15 times, and it still has an acceptable amount of clear remaining. To put it in perspective, the car has 5 or 6 spots of basecoat failure, and zero spots of clear failure.



Yours is probably a bit weaker than mine, as the paintjobs back in 97 were noticeably better than they are now, but still you could probably SFX-2 the whole car 10+ times before you really have to worry about clearcoat thickness.
 
i think i will probably limit my swirl removal to 2x a year. even after upgrading my mitt to microfiber, using the 2 bucket method, being gentle with claybar, using only waffle weave microfibers to dry, and now i bought a california jelly blade (i'll watch out for dirt that might get trapped and scratch), i still get swirls...
 
xnevergiveinx said:
i think i will probably limit my swirl removal to 2x a year. even after upgrading my mitt to microfiber, using the 2 bucket method, being gentle with claybar, using only waffle weave microfibers to dry, and now i bought a california jelly blade (i'll watch out for dirt that might get trapped and scratch), i still get swirls...
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I had more marring using a microfiber mitt and a cali water blade.



I would go with real sheepskin and start blowing it dry with a electric blower from sears. The less you touch the paint the better.



Lorne
 
I expect you'll be fine. Since you know to use a little common sense I don't expect you'd risk getting too aggressive and with a PC it would take some effort. Don't use really heavy cut polish, don't use the most aggressive pads, and be careful if you use a 4" pad. Your real risk isn't so much going through it (though it is possible, especially with 4"), but wearing down enough with repeated polishing that you wind up in trouble in the long term.
 
xnevergiveinx said:
maybe i should change my mitt. i'm using a bright green microfiber mitt from advance auto parts. it's got long fibers and wieghs like 5 lbs when soaking wet...
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IMO most good mitts (when wet with wash solution) aren't gonna abrade the paint. The problem comes from the dirt getting dragged across the paint under pressure. Gotta rethink the basic issue: how to get the dirt off the paint without pressing the dirt *against* the paint in the process.



Note that if you apply anything *near* ~5lbs. of pressure to the dirt on your car, and then move the mitt, you're gonna get marring.



Since pressing down on the dirt and then moving the mitt is what causes the marring, I'd get a foamgun and practice the "dislodge and flush" approach to washing.
 
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