Buffing my Nismo (before and after pics!)
 

So a little backstory first... I bought my car after it had sat with the dealer for about 2 months. In that time frame they managed to put some of the worst swirl marks I have ever seen into a car with under 8k miles on it. Needless to say I needed these things out of the paint asap! Looked like crap. Anyway I am no noob to buffing a car and taking imperfections out of paint, but this one had me stumped.


I have an intensive paste from 1z which has always worked well with my cars in the past. I used a heavy cutting pad with this compound and it almost didn't even make a dent in the horrible swirls. After some reading online of other products car detailers like I came across a very familiar name "Meguiars" so I figured I'd look into it more.

I was told to try out their "Ultimate Compound" which can be purchased at Wal-Mart, Advance Auto, etc. so I immediately thought "yeah I am real sure this is going to work when my 35.00 bottle of the high end professional line intensive paste didn't.."

Well I was wrong... This Ultimate Compound is some of the best stuff I have ever used. I will post before and after pictures so you guys have a good idea of how bad these swirls were...

Cliffs notes: tried professional buffing compound and it didn't work. Tried cheap Meguiars compound from Wal-Mart and it blew my mind.


Before:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/5c4d5518.jpg

After:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/5016d60a.jpg


Before:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/b30de603.jpg

After:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/70383521.jpg


Pretty crazy, huh?

Very nice! Great job

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Outstanding

:eek:Wow! Huge difference! Beautiful! Post some pics of the entire car so we too can enjoy!

Sure thing!


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/4812b633.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/63caf1c1.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...0/e36928e9.jpg

I got two bottle of that sitting in the garage but I always thought it would be too aggressive for the soft clear-coat. Guess i was wrong.

i like the deeeeeeep red. :tup:

Very nicely done!

M105/M205 works really well and even better than the ultimate compound.

That's next on the list because there were a few spots that didn't come out perfectly with the UC. I was looking into the M105 for those spots. Wanna give me some? :icon17:

Looks great man. I would have never thought to try that particular product either.

lol. sure, but you're gonna have to pick it up at my house.

You can actually buy M105 & M205 at some auto stores like Pepboys, AutoZone or Advance, but they usually don't have many in stock. It's a breeze when used with a PC. I actually just finished detailing my car with this stuff about a week ago. It's aggressive at getting the swirls out, but not too aggressive where it takes too much clear. The only thing you gotta watch out for is keeping the pad clean with M105. It can get really dusty if you let this stuff dry too long or build up on your pad. The M205 on the other hand has very little dust.

I also like the stuff from Adam's. They have more polishing ranges depending on condition of the paint, but it's a lot more work to get the same result.... for me working with a PC anyways.

Ride looks great btw.

Yeah if anything it could be slightly MORE aggressive. Just bought a bottle of M105 to hopefully get out those deeper marks that Ultimate Compound couldn't get. None the less, VERY impressed with Meguiars stuff after that.

Love to see how that UC stuff would work on Magnetic Black

Yup, M105/205 works great on our cars. The beauty is the level of cut they have is pad and pressure dependent. M205 can cut surprisingly well when used with a microfiber pad, and M105 can finish very well for a compound when used with a finishing pad and minimal pressure.

I tried to use my Menzerna polishes but they didn't play nicely with the paint; it would gum up and start spitting polish everywhere. Sonax all-in-one works very well too, good for just a maintanence polish to remove very minor wash induced marring. Pinnacle XMT series doesn't work well, but Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover is ok.

What color polishing pads do you guys recommend using with the M105 and M205? I use a Porter cable by the way. What speeds are you using when buffing out these swirls?

It really depends on the pad brand and especially the condition of the paint. For M105 I used the Adam's orange/swirl haze remover pad. For M205 I used the Adam's white/fine machine polish pad. Both are pretty effective, so I would test an area with M205 and a fine polish pad first...then work your way to a pad that gets the job done.

....basically a medium polish pad (m105) and a fine polish pad (m205) should be a good starting point.

Meg's also sells a 6" DA Microfiber Cutting & a 6" Finishing Disc.

That's exactly what I would do. I used an aggressive cutting pad while using the ultimate compound, but the m105 cuts better so a medium polishing pad would be best to start with.

love the nismo! looks great!

Interesting. On my red 2012, the dealer swirled the crap out of it in the 3 days they had it (pretty sure they washed it with a brush). I've been polishing cars for close to 20 years and went straight to my Poorboys polishes. Started with SSR1, didn't touch them. Went to 2.0 and started to get them, but not like I had hoped. So I stepped up to SSR 2.5. Worked a little, but still really had me stumped. I mean, I've taken out some nasty scratches with 2.5. Ended up just throwing a crap load of Z5 on it and that's helped, but I really want to get it right.

Anyone know if the Megs has fillers in it? Since I use Zaino, I can't use something with fillers or have to do an IPA wipedown.

I don't think it has fillers, but it probably has oils the keeps the polish workable. I would do an IPA wipedown regardless. I've never used Zaino though, so I can't tell you if it's safe or not.

Very, Very nice! Good job.