How does MPPC work?

[tguil]

Mike, Tim and others:

I picked up some MPPC because 2hotford suggested that it is good for removing water spots. Most of the forum chat indicts that MPPC is a chemical cleaner with no abrassives. According to the directions on the bottle, MPPC will "...remove all surface defects from the finest hairline scratches to more stubborn environmental contaimnants. This product is a safe alternative to harsh, abrasive cleaners and rubbing compounds..."

OK, if it cleans by chemical action, I can understand removing water spots before they are actually etched into the finish, but once the etching occurs something that is abrassive will be required to get them out, right?

Also how can a chemical cleaner remove "fine hairline scratches"?

I've been trying to avoid grabbing the DACP to get rid of the water spots that keep appearing on my hood. I thought that I'd give MCCP a try.

(I have a black Hemi and the hood takes quite a beating from engine heat, water and the hot sun. It has been getting an application of NXT every two or three weeks.)

Tom

[scrub]

Just my opinion, but I've noticed the MPPC removes the same junk in the scratches (like the junk on the surface) which kind of hides them. MPPC does a great job cleaning and seems to last a good while, but the defects I was trying remove were still there. I applied using the PC. That's not a problem. As for the claims of removing... Well I'm sure it does, maybe my defects were beyond the capability of this particular product.

Still great results and a big before and after difference. I think the most significant before and after difference, of most steps in the process.

Good luck!

[Aurora40]

I don't believe MPPC is non-abrasive. It's just more chemically. I would bet it has some abrasive in it. Also, your application method will act as an abrasive as the chemical action loosens up the top of the paint. This is how (in my understanding) it removes oxidation so well. MPPC will remove some paint, just like an abrasive product would, but it does it in a different way. However, it doesn't remove much good paint, as witnessed by how it doesn't really do much for swirls and scratches except mild ones.

I think of chemical cleaners as working much much better on weak damaged paint than on good cured paint. Much like a paint thinner won't do much to cured paint. This makes MPPC totally awesome on the crappy oxidized layer of paint as it really loosens and breaks it up, but it does not do much on the healthy cured part underneath.

Abrasives, in my opinion/understanding, tend to work similarly on both as they will abrade away both. Though it is easier to abrade away soft/oxidized paint than harder/healthy paint, so the paint type, condition, etc will help determine how much the abrasives can work away in a given amount of time.

I don't know if that really explains anything or is very helpful.

I think chemical cleaners are excellent on contaminents, paint transfer, oxidation, etc because of this ability to work so well on non-healthy-paint stuff and their relative inability to work on healthy paint. But as I said, I think MPPC has some light abrasive to it and the applicator can be abrasive, so it does have some ability to remove swirls (note they use the word "hairline", code for only light swirl removal ability, much like #9 or so). Also, water spots can really be bad even if they don't look that bad.

At the Autopia Detail Day, a guy with a G35 had some water spotting on the roof. It didn't look that bad (the car was silver, which helped hide it) and his car was less than a year old iirc, so you'd think, how bad could it get etched in so short a time? Mike went at it with the rotary, and iirc a cutting pad and #84? Jim was checking things out with the paint thickness gauge, and also helping with the buffing. They worked it as much as they felt was safe and you could still see the etching, in fact, you could still see it some of the spots about as clearly as before, imo. They did reduce it some but the etching was clearly much more severe than it appeared to be.

Hope this is helpful.