Polishing Tomorrow, Quick Question

[Naz24]

So i'm gonna polish my Alpine White 4.4i tomorrow....

I have some swirls that really bother me, most arent very deep, but some are...

I have a porter cable 7424XP and Menzerna Super Intensive polish (medium cut) and a Menzerna Nano polish (finishing Cut)...

Do you think the medium cut is enough to get through my swirls? mind you my car has about 104,000 on the clock, i have personally never polished it, but it was detailed by the dealer when i bought it with 65k, and has not really seen the car wash.. only hand washes by yours truly...

I have meguiars ultra cut compound also--would this be too much of a cut? I really would rather not cut through the finish more than i have to..

Whats your take?

TIA

[cfmistry]

Yes a medium cut polish should be more than enough for light swirls on a white car. The X's clear is pretty tough, but I wouldn't use anything more aggressive without trying the medium first. Menzerna = good stuff! :thumbsup:

[BabyCAP]

I suggest that you start with least aggressive polish and pad combo and then adjust from there. Always start with least aggressive and then pull out big guns if you have to. Good Luck. Your X5 is gonna look sharp!!!

[Bill Valley]

I used the Menzerna SIP and PC w/ a Lake Country Polish pad on my Jet Black this spring and was able to remove the majority of the swirls.

[abwmma]

I use Flex, Menzerna and Lake Country CCS Pad. Well, you have a lot of choices with difference combinations. Yellow, Orange, Green…. Do a 2'x2' test area and find out if the Orange medium cut pad will do the job, if not then use yellow heavy cut pad. 3 passes for each polishing compounds…. It took me 4 hours per day total of 16 hours for my BMW 3 series. X5 is a bigger car it will take longer. Don’t forget that is depend on how bad of the swirls are. I wish I can done quicker. May be it is time to up grade to rotary polisher.

[Naz24]

So I started with the medium polish... Not enough cut. I had some deep scratches... Moved to yellow pad and meguiars ultra cut compound. Did the trick-- although the ultra cut compound is really cumbersome to work with.. Seems to stick to the paint etc etc.

I ended up doing the following: clay, meguiars ultra cut with yellow pad, Menzerna super intensive with green pad, Menzerna super finish with blue pad, then topped it off with einzett glanz wax. Came out awesome! The worst part was the final rinse down which took away the just waxed smoothness! So I put some prima hydra on at the end.

Here are a few pics.




Oh and I wet sanded my headlights with 2000 grit and polished accordingly. Worked well for the minimal haze I had

[abwmma]

I have used Power Gloss with Yellow pad on my daughter’s 93’ 325i. SIP with orange pad, Super Finish with white and Finishing Glaze with black pad. Then finish with FMJ. Total polish time close to 30 hours.

[abwmma]

The reflection of bottom of my ///M3 on the lift.

[Naz24]

^ Thats impressive!