Critique my potential paint correction strategy

[MPower7]

Hey Guys,

I have light to medium swirls on my AW 2011 M3. To my knowledge the car has never been corrected.

Here is what I think may work well. Please pick this apart and let me know what's missing.

-Decon Wash
-IronX
-Clay Nanoskin Mitt
-Car Pro Eraser
-Polish (Sonax Perfect Finish with PC 7424XP using yellow Rupees polishing pads
-Car Pro Eraser
-Ceramic Coating

Please let me know what you guys think. Would 3 inch pads and 6 inch pads be the best combination for this car? Need help with the pad choice.

Thanks!

[wfdeacon88]

Originally Posted by MPower7

Hey Guys,

I have light to medium swirls on my AW 2011 M3. To my knowledge the car has never been corrected.

Here is what I think may work well. Please pick this apart and let me know what's missing.

-Decon Wash
-IronX
-Clay Nanoskin Mitt
-Car Pro Eraser
-Polish (Sonax Perfect Finish with PC 7424XP using yellow Rupees polishing pads
-Car Pro Eraser
-Ceramic Coating

Please let me know what you guys think. Would 3 inch pads and 6 inch pads be the best combination for this car? Need help with the pad choice.

Thanks!

I'm sure others are going to be more qualified, but I have done a paint correction, and if you do have medium swirls, you will probably need a 2 step; compound then finishing polish. I used an orange pad then white pad, but regret not going microfiber as this paint is pretty damn hard.

[PYE46M3]

Originally Posted by MPower7

Hey Guys,

I have light to medium swirls on my AW 2011 M3. To my knowledge the car has never been corrected.

Here is what I think may work well. Please pick this apart and let me know what's missing.

-Decon Wash
-IronX
-Clay Nanoskin Mitt
-Car Pro Eraser
-Polish (Sonax Perfect Finish with PC 7424XP using yellow Rupees polishing pads
-Car Pro Eraser
-Ceramic Coating

Please let me know what you guys think. Would 3 inch pads and 6 inch pads be the best combination for this car? Need help with the pad choice.

Thanks!

Started a paint correction myself yesterday and still working on it. your strategy is good.
Some tips:
-you can use meguiars ultimate all wheel cleaner as your Iron decontamination step for half the price of Iron X... or just get two bottles to apply a generous coating. Yes it is safe on paint.
- I would stick to good old fashion clay bar. nothing beats that honestly.
-Good choice going with SONAX. However, perfect finish is better for rotary, the DA version of it is the EX-04/06. I did my hood with the EX 04-06 using Sonax yellow DA pad and it got all the swirl marks out and some scratches. It is very easy to apply and produced lovely results. 8oz would do the whole car. I have a 8oz bottle of cut and finish on back up just in case (cut 5, finish 5) which would have taken out some of those left over scratches but I decided not to use it to preserve the clear coat thickness as my car has been corrected once before. It's impossible to take everything out and you can chase every imperfection for months. You may want to start a little more aggressively with cut and finish but your gloss will be a 5 instead of a 6 as with EX-04/6 or perfect finish. You can either settle with that or have 8oz bottle of profile nano polish (3/6) to go over it a second time and achieve a gloss of 6. or simply use profline final if money isnt an issue (only comes in 1L bottles).
- good choice on carpro eraser. I used old gold IPA. perhpas have some carpro water sport remover on back up for those stubborn water spots.
-ceramic coating is exactly what you want. I was thinking about going with that as well except I decided to try on meguiars hybrid ceramic line up of 3 products which I think would allow me to build layers of protection with ease. I will apply the liquid form by hand, then the spray form after every wash to reinforce the existing layer, then ceramic quick detailer to further reinforce that layer after i dry the car to remove water spots. This should allow me to always maintain a nice layer of protection easily. Something you may want to look into.

Edit: yes 3" and 6" pads are good for this car if you dont have that much machine time under your belt. The E92 has a lot of big flat panels so 7" wouldnt hurt either. 2" would be a little better in tighter areas than 3" but harder to find. For Pads, I used the yellow Sonax 5.75" pad (the one with the hole in the middle is for DA). it is perfect for the 3 products below. the red pad is VERY aggressive. for 2" or 3" pad, you can use lake country.

I used Griots garage 6" and 3" buffers.

The beauty of these products is the fact that they start with some degree of cutting ability but breakdown into a polish to give you a glossy clear coat ready to for a layer of protection.

[yoslow]

Originally Posted by MPower7

Hey Guys,

I have light to medium swirls on my AW 2011 M3. To my knowledge the car has never been corrected.

Here is what I think may work well. Please pick this apart and let me know what's missing.

-Decon Wash
-IronX
-Clay Nanoskin Mitt
-Car Pro Eraser
-Polish (Sonax Perfect Finish with PC 7424XP using yellow Rupees polishing pads
-Car Pro Eraser
-Ceramic Coating

Please let me know what you guys think. Would 3 inch pads and 6 inch pads be the best combination for this car? Need help with the pad choice.

Thanks!

Used to have an alpine white M3, very hard paint - don't think you'd get anything done with anything less than a microfiber cutting pad. 3 inch and 6 inch should cover most of the car, but areas like the door jamb, side blinkers will be hard to reach with even the 3 inch.

Depending on the paint, might opt for a microfiber + perfect finish rather than the yellow pad right off the bad - yellow pad will jewel up the paint but you won't get much cut out of it, especially with perfect finish. I'm doubtful that you'll get any swirls out with a yellow pad and perfect finish.

Be mindful of any tar you might have on the paint - you don't want to be swirling this around, especially on a microfiber pad! Would recommend goo-gone or tarx for tar removal.

For your decon wash, make sure you're using a stripping soap, and not your typical maintence soap - you want to be stripping prior sealants and waxes prior to polishing.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

[MPower7]

Originally Posted by yoslow

Used to have an alpine white M3, very hard paint - don't think you'd get anything done with anything less than a microfiber cutting pad. 3 inch and 6 inch should cover most of the car, but areas like the door jamb, side blinkers will be hard to reach with even the 3 inch.

Depending on the paint, might opt for a microfiber + perfect finish rather than the yellow pad right off the bad - yellow pad will jewel up the paint but you won't get much cut out of it, especially with perfect finish. I'm doubtful that you'll get any swirls out with a yellow pad and perfect finish.

Be mindful of any tar you might have on the paint - you don't want to be swirling this around, especially on a microfiber pad! Would recommend goo-gone or tarx for tar removal.

For your decon wash, make sure you're using a stripping soap, and not your typical maintence soap - you want to be stripping prior sealants and waxes prior to polishing.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Great info here. I am planning on using Car Pro Tar X as well during the decon process.

Also, was planning on using Car Pro reload wash, it says it doesnt harm the ceramic coating but will strip waxes and sealants.

Would using a microfiber pad with EX 06 04 polish be a "one step" that could remove medium swirls but still finish nicely?

Any recommendations on microfiber pad brand/choices.

[yoslow]

Originally Posted by MPower7

Great info here. I am planning on using Car Pro Tar X as well during the decon process.

Also, was planning on using Car Pro reload wash, it says it doesnt harm the ceramic coating but will strip waxes and sealants.

Would using a microfiber pad with EX 06 04 polish be a "one step" that could remove medium swirls but still finish nicely?

Any recommendations on microfiber pad brand/choices.

Assuming you meant Carpro reset rather than reload, I personally use carpro reset as my stripping soap for my personal car - but when I'm looking for something more aggressive, I default to dish detergant or chemicals guys citrus wash (keep in mind that this is the red one rather than the wash and gloss which is yellow; not a big fan of their products, but this one works)

Never used EX 06 04 before, but it seems like a compound that finishes off nicely - all depends on how it looks in your eyes

Microfiber pads - I've had no issues with meguiar's, tried and tested pad that has corrected quite a few BMW's

[MPower7]

Originally Posted by yoslow

Assuming you meant Carpro reset rather than reload, I personally use carpro reset as my stripping soap for my personal car - but when I'm looking for something more aggressive, I default to dish detergant or chemicals guys citrus wash (keep in mind that this is the red one rather than the wash and gloss which is yellow; not a big fan of their products, but this one works)

Never used EX 06 04 before, but it seems like a compound that finishes off nicely - all depends on how it looks in your eyes

Microfiber pads - I've had no issues with meguiar's, tried and tested pad that has corrected quite a few BMW's

Yes, CP Reset was what I mean't. Do you think the Yellow pad would remove light swirls and haze?

[b4hand]

Originally Posted by MPower7

Yes, CP Reset was what I mean't. Do you think the Yellow pad would remove light swirls and haze?

Yes, with the right polish

[Scharbag]

We just did a 2 stage correction. The steps were:

Pressure wash
Foam cannon
Good wash with wash mitt
Pressure rinse
Iron-X (light scrub after 3 minute rest - be careful with the front kidney grills)
Pressure rinse
Foam cannon
Clay bar
Pressure rinse
Dry
Put car on QuickJack
Remove wheels and wash the barrels
Dry wheels

Now that the car is clean, we used Meguiar's 105 with 3" and 5" microfibre pads with the DA at high speed (we also used Chemical Guys pad conditioner - keeps the dust down). The BMW clear coat is very hard but the 105 does a great job at removing micro scratches etc. Surprisingly, it does not even leave any real haze even though it is an aggressive compound.

Once the whole car had been 105'd, then we moved on to 205 with white foam pads at medium speed. The 205 took much less time than 105 and really made the paint pop.

Cheers,

The E9X has a lot of large flat panels so all in all it is not too bad.

Cheers,