The Vehicle – BMW 3 Series.

The Brief –

We were contacted by the owner of this 3 series, asking for advice and assistance. The guy had purchased a Porter Cable polisher, and had some result using Meguiar’s #80 speed glaze to remove light swirling. The Meguiar’s #80 not removing any of the deeper defects though. Though BMW’s owner decided to step up to a compound, Menzerna S34A Power Gloss, and had a go at removing the deeper defects. Although the Power Gloss was not successful at removing any of the defects, he found that the aggressive compound was causing marring of his paint. This marring could not be removed by Meguiar’s #80, so he contacted us.

The inspection –

The Wash Process-

We applied a foam blanket to the car using a Snow Foam : Maxi Suds II mix with the Gilmour.
Rinsed
Hand washed with Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus, by Eurow wash mitt and two bucket method.
Rinsed
Dried with Meguiar’s Water Magnets and spritzing of Last Touch QD, then time to mask –

The Polishing Process –

Using the Porter Cable, a white 6” Sonus SFX pad and Menzerna Intensive Polish PO85 RD3.01, the ceramic clear coat stuff.

A full X of product on the pad, for ¼ of the bonnet. Dabbed around the area being worked with the machine off

1 pass at speed 1 to spread.
Worked at speed 4 to 5 for 4 or 5 passes, with just enough pressure on the head of the PC to control the spin of the pad to 1 revolution per 2 seconds. (We draw a line on the back of the flexi pad, to highlight when it is spinning. By controlling the spin of the pad, we’ve found that we can control the pressure being applied to suit the polish.)
When the polish started to bloom, we upped the speed to the maximum that the BMW could handle. ( there is a soft spot in the centre of these bonnets). 2 passes at maximum, then wiped off the residue.

We then did a second set of passes with Menzerna Final Finish polish, this is the ceramic clear coat finish polish with a Menz rated gloss of 5. We used the same grade of pad, and same application method as with the Menz IP PO85 RD3.01.

Straight after wiping down the Menz Final Finish –

Not only did these two polishes work great on restoring the gloss to ‘better than showroom’ they also removed the swirls from the panel with the minimum of paint thickness removed. Better to use a finer grade of polish, but one that is suited to the toughness of the paint, than to step up to a coarse compound too soon in my opinion.

Rolled the car outside into a late morning sun -

Rolled the car back inside, so that we could demonstrate the correct method of slow cut with Menz PG.

The owner, with Tommy’s assistance then applied a coat of Red Moose glaze by PC to the polished panels.
We then applied a coat of Chemical Guys F-Sealant to the polished sections.
Wiped down the whole car with Chemical Guy’s Professional QD with 1 x Carnauba.

The finished car –