How hard is the paint of a 2005 Mercedes SL55 AMG?

[CreamPuff]

Hi...I'm going to be detailing a black SL55 AMG soon, but I was wondering if anyone had experience with how hard the paint is? I have to order some pads but i'm not sure if i should go with the yellow pads or burgundy cutting pad.

The car has lots and lots of swirls so I'll be for sure using Meguiar's Ultimate compound.

Did some searching but couldn't really find the info I wanted. Some of the Mercedes detailed in the Show Off Your Latest Detail Work were newer and I didn't want to use that as a gauge of the paint for an older car.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: How hard is the paint of a 2005 Mercedes SL55 AMG?

Well, generalizations about paint hardness can be a bit dangerous as there is a lot of room for variation with the "same" color, make and models. That said, *usually* that paint will be fairly hard due to its ceramic nature. Now, where things get tricky is that simply stepping up to more aggressive pads or products won't necessarily fix that...and may in fact make it far worse by increasing holograms or marring.

What type of buffer will you be using? How much experience do you have with it?

What finishing polishes do you have? Are you going for 100% correction?

Working on black Mercedes paint can be a real challenge, so just know going into it that your usual processes may not yield the results you are used to. DEFINITELY plan on doing a test spot and checking the results from first first step to your final step and checking in all lighting before doing the whole car.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How hard is the paint of a 2005 Mercedes SL55 AMG?

While you might read on various detailing forums that Mercedes all have very hard paint, I know of at least one that for sure does not, and it's a 2007 SL55 AMG in non metallic black. I've worked on this car a few times and found that it hazes very easily, holograms like mad when corrected with a rotary buffer, and really does not like our DA Microfiber Correction System at all. Oddly enough, what this car really does like is our D300 Microfiber Correction Compound on a W8207 Soft Buff 2.0 foam polishing pad with the DA spinning at speed 5. That clears up everything very quickly and leaves a finish ready for wax.

But this is a 2007 model and you're talking about a 2005 model - the paint could be vastly different on these two vehicles. As always, we recommend yo do a test spot first, starting with a light to mildly aggressive process and see how that goes. We really like Ultimate Compound on a W8207 pad as a starting point for most cars. And we can't stress "starting point" enough - until you really get into it with a given car, there are no guarantees that any one process is going to be the best for it.