SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

[Benethc]

Having a bit of problems with swirlx... Just got back from my Holidays to find my Meguiars SWIRLX has arrived!I have a beautiful new black on black seat Ibiza FR and have unfortunately used a dirty sponge at some point and spotted that I have lots of unsightly swirl marks on my car! None of these can be felt under my fingernail and are all superficial and that's why I picked SWIRLX. I have watched a number of videos and read a number of reviews.Having initially tried, there was practically no difference, so I tried with progressively harder pressure until I ended up with some hazing of the black paint. With trial and error I have realised perhaps my paint is quite soft, and I'm quite heavy handed (probably relating to the presence of swirls in the first place!) Any way I feel I am going in the right direction and beginning to see some difference and have managed to reverse hazing with progressive lighter and lighter hand buffing. My questions are: how long am I supposed to (hand) buff the SWIRLX on for before wiping away? I know this is slightly subjective but roughly speaking is it something like 30 seconds, 2 minutes or 10 minutes say for a 8x8" area? Also: Am I right in thinking light repetitive motion is the best way to ensure I am not creating new swirls or hazing the paint underneath? Finally: will increasing the time in one area get rid of more swirls, there's still lots of small ones left which is really annoying. ANY TIPS, ESPECIALLY PERSONAL TIPS ARE MUCH MUCH APPRECIATED. A DA buffer is kind of out of the window as I have no cash free at the minute (and for the foreseeable future!) so I would like to keep costs to a minimum and get the car sorted with this product. Just so you know I was using a new foam applicator and MF a cloth for application and the car had just been washed and dried. Application was not in direct sunlight. I also tried applying with a microfibre sponge and microfibre cloths (all new or just washed). Thanks a lot guys!

[Benethc]

Re: SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

In addition! circular motions or back and fourth/ up n down? Or a mixture of those?

i was generally going circular or perhaps a different direction to the direction of present scratches.

Thanks again

[Top Gear]

Re: SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

Well, that's a lot of questions. Pictures would help greatly, and it's hard to do much more than speculate in such cases.

However, my speculation is that you have probably rubbed the SwirlX in too hard and it's basically dried out into the MF. The hazing might be typical abrading of the surface layers of previous wax or other products, not damage. If so, the haze will come away with second, light "pass" with SwirlX again, or a polish step, say Ultimate Polish, which you can easily find in stores. After that, a good wax, and then you'll see how much better that spot looks than the rest of the car. Doing the whole car by hand is pure torture, but that's how we all started

Again, post some pictures.

[Benethc]

Re: SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

Thanks for your reply! It suddenly became sunny so I went out after the gym and burnt my back grafting over the car haha. Yeah I got the hazing out with lighter applications. I'm not sure how hard I must have pushed it in haha..

Anyway, I've done the majority of the car now and having just been at the gym after being on holiday it was pretty hard work after a while!

Suns gone it now so no pictures atm.

I've found that I've got some swirls out, thankfully it's the ones you could see from the front window of my house! (So the bad ones)

I am struggling, especially with the hood to remove a lot of swirls however, even after a number of attempts. These are definitely superficial so I am pretty confused so any advice with regard to that would be really useful!

Thanks 😊

[The Guz]

Re: SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

What type of applicator did you use? A foam applicator would be the recommended applicator to use. Microfiber applicators will give more "bite" but can sometimes haze the paint.

Also don't expect to eliminate all swirls by hand. You can make the paint look better but you are not going to be able to remove them entirely. A dual action polisher would achieve better results.

[Nick Winn]

Re: SWIRLX looking for tips and clear instructions! Please help

When working by hand to try to remove swirls & scratches with a paint cleaner or compound we typically recommend applying with a soft foam applicator pad and removing with a microfiber towel. Work in small 1 square foot or so areas at a time, keeping your hand flat, applying the product in circular overlapping motions for about a minute. The product should break down to a light wet translucent film, which should wipe off easily. This process can be repeated in any particular area if needed, but if after a few attempts in any particular area without removing all defects, it would be recommend to use a more aggressive product like our Ultimate Compound, especially when working by hand. SwirlX is a mild cleaner/polish with ability to remove light swirls. Our Ultimate Compound is a dedicated compound and can work to remove moderate swirls, scratches, & oxidation by hand.

Clear Coat Paints are extremely "scratch sensitive" especially during washing, but on the other end of things when we work to try to remove defects they are most often times resilient. You absolutely can achieve good results by hand, but it will certainly take some elbow grease and usually a stronger product like our Ultimate Compound especially for the defect removal step. Especially for a black car it would be recommend to follow your defect removal step with a nice polish, like our Ultimate Polish. This will future refine the paint & increase gloss, and also work to remove any haze.

If needed you can always contact Meguiar's UK office as well for customer service or technical support.

We are going to move this discussion to our "Working by Hand" forum section. We hope this information was helpful. Feel free to post further questions.