which pad to use

I have a decent selection of Meguiars pads....Their CMA equivalents are for cutting, Meguiars is the burgundy pad and CMA is the Yellow; for Polishing Meguiars is the Yellow pad and CMA is the white; and for finishing, Meguiars is the salmon colored, and CMA is the grey.



Now that we have that straight, I have a question about wax application. At the site, http://www.properautocare.com/pinliqsouvwa.html, use of Liquid Soveran is described. And for use with a Machine, it is recommended to apply with the cma WHITE pad, the polishing pad. Which surprises me because I thought that whenever I applied either liquid or paste carnauba with no cleaning ingredients, I should be using the Finishing pad.



So, the question is, when applying straight carnauba with no cleaners by machine, is there any benefit to using the cma white or meguiars yellow (both considered polishing) pads instead of the finishing pads? ie, does this add a tiny measure of polishing effect, or just enough aggressiveness to the straight carnauba to perhaps remove any stray blemishes that might just be covered up when applying with the finishing pads? Sometimes, if you pay alot of attention to your cars surface, you find that you want to wax the car, and that it doesnt really require a full surface cleaning or polish. In situations like these, maybe it makes sense to apply the wax with the polishing pads, saving the finishing pads for those occasions when either youve done a complete surface polish or cleaning first, or when youre layering carnauba toppers.
 
That's a hard call to make. The assumption is that the yellow pad will have a little more "bite" than the finishing pad and might show marring in the wax coat. But I don't think that is definitive.



If you're concerned about this I suggest sticking with the finishing pad. At least you'll be using the softest pad for the final step and you should get excellent results. You can try it with the yellow pad just for grins but that's up to you.
 
Stick with the finishing pad. If you use too agressive of a pad to apply a wax you can create very visable micro-marrring.
 
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