Trouble on Lexus paint correction

[madmilk]

Hey, guys. I have recently purchased a black 07 GS350 that I'm working on getting cleaned up. The paint on this car is pretty bad and has some substantial swirling and oxidation.

I am using the following method:

wash/clay
M105 with an orange pad on a PC 7424XP
M205 with a white pad on a PC 7424XP
Blackfire Wet Diamond on a blue pad
Dodo Juice Purple Haze wax

I prime the pads with Quick Detailer and then spread the polish on first with the buffer turned off and then I turn it to speed 3 to spread the polish evenly. I will then turn it up to speed 5 and spend about three to five minutes on an area moving very slowly and then gradually speeding up. I apply as much pressure as I can without causing the buffer to bog down. At the end I turn it back down to speed 3 and make a few more passes. Then I will wipe off the residue with a microfiber towel.

I'm getting a noticeable improvement in the paint. The oxidation is gone, however it's not perfect. I still see some swirling in the paint and I would like to know what I can do to achieve near 100% correction. Do I need to try a different product or should I order some purple pads and try the M105 with the purple pad? I like to think I'm going slow enough and that I'm applying enough pressure, but this is only my second car to detail. My first one was my 05 TL which I got very good results with, but again, not the amount of correction that I'm seeing in the Show Your Results forum that the professionals are able to achieve.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Murr1525]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

Working for 5-7 minutes on one area with one product does not sound right.

You may be causing some swirling if the product is drying on the paint.

Not sure about the pads, have not used LC.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

Never really put a timer on how long I worked a product in. Usually go by sight. Try not to work the product dry. The product still should be wet when finishing a section. I could be wrong, but 7 minutes a section seems like your overworking the product.

[madmilk]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

Thanks for the responses. I'm likely overestimating the time I'm spending on each panel. I will try and cut down the length of time though and see if that has any effect.

Does anyone know if Lexus is particularly hard or soft? My TL had fairly soft paint from what I've read.

[RaskyR1]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

Yeah, I'd have to say you are over working the polish too. Typically on a 18" x 18" section I will work the M105 and get about 3-4 vertical and 3-4 horizontal cross hatching passes using about 20lbs of pressure. I'd say that takes about 60-90 seconds. M105 car dry up pretty fast and most users won't bother with spreading it around on a slower speed.


M205 can be worked quite a bit longer but it really doesn't need to be IMO. I would also suggest finishing with a black LC pad too.


Lexus tends to be on the softer side.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

You have described your process in great detail, which is fantastic, but does that process include a follow up with M205 or is just the M105/LC orange pad? If your paint is at all scratch sensitive it could well be that you're hazing the paint with this pad. Rather than trying a more aggressive approach we would suggest you actually step it down a notch first.

To begin, if you haven't followed up the M105/orange pad with M205/white pad, you should do so on a test spot where you've already run M105/orange and see where that gets you. As an alternative, you could try a fresh test spot with M105/white pad and then follow that with M205/black pad. If, on the other hand, both of these alternatives yield even less correction than your initial attempts then you may need to get more aggressive.

But do those test spots and pull the car out into the sunlight and evaluate the finish very carefully. An untreated area that is just swirled, even badly swirled, should not look hazy - it should just look swirled. A product that is a little on the gentle side (and this could be liquid or pad) should reduce the amount of swirls and leave the paint looking noticeably clearer. A product (liquid or pad) that is overly aggressive can do a number of different things:

• remove all swirls in a single pass but leave the paint looking hazy and dull
• remove some random light swirls but inflict a whole new set of very evenly distributed swirls
• remove all swirls and leave a very clear finish (this sounds good, but if the pad/liquid combo is removing swirls super fast it may be a much more aggressive approach than is really needed - ie, you're removing more paint than need be. this would be fairly rare, however)

Not too long ago we met with a fair bit of frustration when buffing out a Shelby Cobra replica at Superformance. Scroll down to the write up just below the pictures of the swirled paint for a description of what we tested before settling on a final approach. This was very delicate paint, probably far, far more delicate than what your Lexus presents. But it still shows the challenges that can be faced when dealing with different vehicles.

[madmilk]

Re: Trouble on Lexus paint correction

You have described your process in great detail, which is fantastic, but does that process include a follow up with M205 or is just the M105/LC orange pad? If your paint is at all scratch sensitive it could well be that you're hazing the paint with this pad. Rather than trying a more aggressive approach we would suggest you actually step it down a notch first.

To begin, if you haven't followed up the M105/orange pad with M205/white pad, you should do so on a test spot where you've already run M105/orange and see where that gets you. As an alternative, you could try a fresh test spot with M105/white pad and then follow that with M205/black pad. If, on the other hand, both of these alternatives yield even less correction than your initial attempts then you may need to get more aggressive.

But do those test spots and pull the car out into the sunlight and evaluate the finish very carefully. An untreated area that is just swirled, even badly swirled, should not look hazy - it should just look swirled. A product that is a little on the gentle side (and this could be liquid or pad) should reduce the amount of swirls and leave the paint looking noticeably clearer. A product (liquid or pad) that is overly aggressive can do a number of different things:

• remove all swirls in a single pass but leave the paint looking hazy and dull
• remove some random light swirls but inflict a whole new set of very evenly distributed swirls
• remove all swirls and leave a very clear finish (this sounds good, but if the pad/liquid combo is removing swirls super fast it may be a much more aggressive approach than is really needed - ie, you're removing more paint than need be. this would be fairly rare, however)

Not too long ago we met with a fair bit of frustration when buffing out a Shelby Cobra replica at Superformance. Scroll down to the write up just below the pictures of the swirled paint for a description of what we tested before settling on a final approach. This was very delicate paint, probably far, far more delicate than what your Lexus presents. But it still shows the challenges that can be faced when dealing with different vehicles.

Thanks for all of the responses and help. Yes, I am following up with M205 on a white pad with pretty much the same process that I am using with the M105 on the orange pad. I have a 1000W halogen worklight that I point right at the spot I'm doing to thoroughly evaluate my results.

I'm not seeing really any hazing at all. I've got very clear paint that has swirling in it, albeit less swirling than before I started. It looks fantastic to the naked eye, but we're on this forum and using these products for better than naked eye results. I am going to try first doing some passes that take less time with both the M105 and the M205 with my current pad configuration. I will also try the M105 on a white pad to see how that turns out. I don't have any black pads to work with, so I'm stuck there. I do have blue pads that I use with the paint sealant.

Thanks for the link to the Shelby Cobra writeup. I'll have a look at it.