Son of a .......... Darn it Porter Cable.

Barry Theal

Barry Theal

New member
In all my years of detailing this has never happened. I am an advid fan of the all famous Porter Cable 7424. I had the original for about 3 years and nothing was wrong with it. In January of this year I upgraded to the newer 7424 xp and after about 6 months this happens. Just thought I would share it with you all. I was polishing on speed 5 with a 5.5 LC Tangerine Hydro pad when all of a sudden my pad and backing plate went flying across the room. I thought the backing plate had snapped. I was wrong!



Here is a shot of the of where it went bad.



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Here is the damage!



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Closer up. This is deep and will not be able to be removed!



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Here is a few pictures of the piece at fault.



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To sum it up, Im pretty pissed with the qaulity of this new Porter Cable 7424xp. Luckily this car is a dealer car going to an Auction next week, so he said to touch it up, but I wanted to pass this on with you gentleman. I will be contacting porter cable directly along with photos to see what they have to say. I will update you all. Have a great day.



Barry Theal
 
Wow, another breakage. You're another person who snapped the rotating shaft! I broke mine on the normal 7424 last year. One day before warranty expired. Welcome to the club. I was lucky enough to not hit the paint thankfully. Though for mine, the entire mechanism fell off, meaning the counterweight and other bits...
 
Thanks for the heads up. Had backing plates break, but never the spindle. Looks like the crimp on the bottom sheared off.
 
Is that piece hollow? Is it solid on the original PC? Luckily it was a dealer car, it could have been a disaster on an exotic.
 
Yes the piece is hollow. I wanted to share this with everyone to give you a heads up. I'm curious what porter cable will say
 
geez i didn't need to see that! i'm working on a jet black 09 M3 this weekend. My pc isn't that old though. So how's the flex? Depending on how this turns out i may be switching.
 
Barry Theal- Glad to hear it didn't damage something else, sorry to hear it happened at all. Like D&D AutoDetail, I'm wondering if the stresses from KBMing were more than PC had planned for :think:



bridgersmith- IMO if you overdo the applied pressure with the Flex you're likely to have issues too. But IMO#2 there's no real need to do that.



eyezack87- What size pad/plate were you using when you broke your (old style) PC? How much applied pressure?
 
Sorry for your issues Barry.



I had a XPPC that had 6 months of KBM constant use, never an issue for me.



I now have a G110v2 that has had a good 4 months of KBM use without an issue.



My festool went in for repair after 2 months for a blown seal...Been fine ever since.
 
Man your lucky it was going to auction! I know most of the dealers here don't even care about a scratch like that one. Anyways I never used a PC just the flex. I know the PC is cheaper in price but looks to be better then the flex. I know the flex is 100% better then the PC when it comes to power but it having a plastic backing plate and all the heat it generates just doesn't sit well with me.



Good luck with PC helping you out. If all else fails you can always send em a copy of this thread to show em the potential business they will be losing in the long run.
 
Accumulator said:
eyezack87- What size pad/plate were you using when you broke your (old style) PC? How much applied pressure?
Click to expand...

6in orange LC pad with LC "unmeltable :LOLOL" backing plate." Reason why its in quotes was because I melted it shortly after and sent it to Eric @ LC to make the version you see today)



Pressure was pretty much standard pressure for polishing, though before I had wetsanded an entire car using a 4in orange LC + Powergloss using the "Isaac Lam Method" that was 4 months prior to the "KBM" lol. Essentially, I pushed the PC further than anyone has ever done in the past prior to the KBM method. There are threads here still where I get flamed for saying wetsand removal via PC is impossible prior to M105. There were over 150 hours on my PC when it broke pretty much
 
eyezack87 said:
6in orange LC pad with LC "unmeltable :LOLOL" backing plate." Reason why its in quotes was because I melted it shortly after and sent it to Eric @ LC to make the version you see today)..
Click to expand...



Huh, with the 6" setup mine just jiggle under that much pressure so they never spent much time under that particular stress. But then I *did* kill my first PC sorta fast, never hurt the (5") backing plate though...



Essentially, I pushed the PC further than anyone has ever done in the past prior to the KBM method...
Click to expand...



Heh heh, I might've given you a run for your money there, seeing as how I killed the clear on my MPV in one spot overdoing it with the PC ;) My paint guy was incredulous that I did that kind of damage with "just the PC".



There are threads here still where I get flamed for saying wetsand removal via PC is impossible prior to M105...
Click to expand...



Heh heh, I'm probably one of those people! I did OK getting 2-3K scratches out of Audis and GMs via PC with 1Z Pasta Intensive. Sure took forever though.





There were over 150 hours on my PC when it broke pretty much
Click to expand...



That's a while if you were hammering on it that hard. I never kept track of the hours, but my first PC seemed to die kinda soon and I figured it was because I was leaning on it so hard (that was with 5" pads back around maybe 1990).
 
Well here is my letter to porter cable



Dear Sir/Mam,



My name is Barry Theal. I am the owner of a small Automotive Detailing Business. As a small business owner, when I purchase a tool for my trade I go for a company that has a reputation of quality and durability. For years I was using your Porter Cable 7424 as a tool for polishing cars. The one I had lasted me 3 years of solid work and never let me down. Recently as of January of 2010 ( Im not sure of the exact date ) I purchased the Newer model which was the Porter Cable 7424xp. At the time I had heard numerous things about the advancements in this tool. I was eager to purchase this and I did. I must say this tool has recently really dissapointed me. I was polishing a car and one of the pieces had broke causing the backing plate and polishing pad to not only fly across the room , but scratching a car as well. I would like to know what would cause a fault lke this to happen? By this failure it cost my business over a $500.00 loss to my company. As a small company this is a big deal. Enclosed is a thread to an online forum that shows exactly what happened. Can you please take five minutes of your time and read threw the forum thread and help me understand what went wrong? I would have returned the unit to my local supplier, but I had lost my receipt so now Im stuck with a broken machine and I'm out $500 dollars.

Here is the threas link.



http://www.autopia.org/forum/machine-polishing/130927-son-darn-porter-cable.html



Take notice 751 fellow detailing professionals, and enthusiest's have seen this already. I'm not trying ruin your companies image on such a great machine. Im just curious how this could have happened? Please contact me, my info is below.



Barry Theal

Presidential Details

717- 875-8686

[email protected]
 
Sorry to hear what happened Barry. Since you're a nationally recognized detailer, they better take care of this situation in a big way. I'm sure they don't want more threads like this getting out. Time to upgrade. Get yourself a bulletproof reliable Cyclo polisher. You can feel the difference in quality when you pick up the machine. I have never liked the PC personally, it feels like it's going to break when I look at it wrong.





John
 
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