First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

[DualActionDetail]

Hi I’m Mark, this is my first detail posting. I’ve waxed before, but with Gold Class and MF, by hand. This was my first time cleaning/polishing/waxing with a machine, G110v2. I’ve been coming to this forum daily for a few months to try to learn as much as I can.

The car is mine, a 2008 Honda Accord LX-P Sedan. I found it an interesting first “full (exterior) detail” car for a few reasons: it is washed regularly so the car is in generally good shape. The issues besides paint corrections such as Interior, Wheels, under the Hood are maintained regularly and required absolutely no attention. I didn’t even wash the wheels! The car is black and has heavy swirl marks in spots, though they aren’t seen from most angles, as you’ll see. Lastly, it is my car! Obviously I couldn’t resist trying out my new toys on my own ride.


Here’s the arsenal, Meguiar’s stuff arrived in full on Wednesday, I’ve been collecting miscellaneous equipment for a few weeks:


Here are some before shots: not too bad from a distance, but paint in need of correction.









I used Hyper-Wash as my soap. I ran it through a Gilmour Foam gun. I was confused as to how to properly use the Hyper-Wash specifically with the Foam gun. The gun is capable of a maximum dilution of 1:128. I wanted to try the Hyper-Wash at 400:1 and see if it would still foam. I mixed the Hyper-Wash in the gun 1:1 with water, it is still a little too much soap, I should’ve known better. The Hyper-Wash really is super-concentrated and foams great! Two caps full were enough for the bucket. After a few rinses, I couldn’t tell which bucket was for soap and which was for rinse. Luckily I bought a green bucket for soap (go!) and a red one for rinse (stop!). Thanks US Plastic.




The car has never been clayed, nor have I ever clayed a car. I used Mild (blue) and Last Touch 1:1 as a lubricant. Clay was really easy to work with and I found the process easy. I wasn’t getting many contaminants on the clay from the hood, so I decided not to clay the rest of the car. (wrong decision!) Here’s the clay after the hood:

Having never used compounds before or used a D/A, I wanted to start less aggressive and try to use the 205 with a Diamond Foam Polishing Pad (WDFP7) on speed 3. I bought the Diamond pads since I read that they were less aggressive than the Soft Buff 2.0. I wanted to start weak until I got the technique down. (Soft Buff 2.0 6.5” and 4” pads on the way, though!) Here is my trunk lid, with the 205. It doesn’t look too bad but there are still swirls.


The sides had more defects and I knew I’d have to crank up my approach. Here is a fender before, as you can see I couldn’t even look at them!


I changed it up to 105 on a WDFP7. Here’s the result after 105 on speed 3:


I was getting some correction, but I knew the 105 was much more capable. I considered technique and tried the “Slow Cut” process I had seen posted by Junkman2000 on youtube (referenced by another post I read here). I did my own modifications to it and tried moderate pressure on speed 3, followed by a spritz of Last Touch 1:1; no pressure speed 4, followed by spritz of Last Touch 1:1 and no pressure speed 5. I’m not sure if those changes came into play, or I just worked the 105 longer, but I started getting better results:


I decided to take a step backward and clay the rest of the car at that point. I wanted to make sure that that wasn’t an issue. Sure enough, I found surface contaminants galore on the doors and front fenders. Don’t judge a clay candidate by its hood, I guess. After claying and my new technique, I started getting my intended result:

Here is the hood:

As it was my first time polishing, it was also my first time taking pictures of a car in process. I kept having trouble with getting too much reflection, as you can see above. It’s kind of hard to tell that it’s my hood after 105, except for the fact there are no swirls!
I had somewhat extreme issues with dust from the pad at first; but that was minimized when I changed my technique to not allow the pad to cross over non flat surfaces (duh!). There was still dust afterwards, but not as much. Are there any other compounds as aggressive as 105 that dust less?

One of the mistakes I made was to not allow myself enough time to finish what I had started. I did the whole car with 105, then had to leave it until the next day. When I got back to it, I was kicking myself for not getting all of the 105 off of a few parts of the hood and around where I had it taped off. It was really dry and somewhat tough to get off. Additionally, the white 105 had filled in all the little tiny chips on the front of my hood that were previously difficult to notice. I worried for a while, but then remembered that 205 was next!

I did some more MOL reading after having experienced a little too much error with my 105 trial and error. I found this thread http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41440 where another user was having trouble with a new Honda and Mike advised a finishing pad with the 205. I switched to the WDFF7 and did an initial pass at speed 2, light pressure, and a second pass at speed 5 with no pressure. Here’s a picture of the 2 doors done with that technique, back side and fender only with 105.


I liked how the 205 went on, but I did have some trouble wiping it off. It seemed a little “wet” to me and was more slick than the 105 was. Should I have allowed dry time?

I was excited to move on to the wax step. I went with M21 with a fresh WDFF7 at speed 2. I tried to make my coats thin as advised, how’d I do?



The 21 went on really easily and took almost no time at all. It was a cool evening and I wanted to make sure it had enough time to dry properly. I decided to use some M40 on my plastic grill. Cleaned with APC+ 10:1, applied M40, before/after:



I was glad the result wasn’t overly slick or shiny. It dried with some smears, but I think they occurred mostly in areas that I perhaps hadn’t cleaned as well. I’m looking forward to trying M40 in other situations.
I dressed the tires with All-Season Dressing

Some final shots after wiping off M21 and Last Touch





Thanks for reading, and thanks for all of your posts that allowed me to learn how to do this!

[Murr1525]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Looks like you did great.

Next time you should only need #205, which will help your technique a lot I am sure.

[gto_don]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Great job on that Honda, Mark.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

The Honda looks very good, Mark.
Congrats on your first machine detail.

[yalerd]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Nice job on the first detail

[Markus Kleis]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Nice work Mark, especially for a first detail!

A few tips: you should generally be working with speed 4, if not speed 5 when doing serious defect removal. Speed 3 is really more for spreading wax in most cases. You could save a lot of time and make your work more effective with a little more speed, which in turn allows for a little more pressure.

Also, I have found Last Touch is be REALLY awesome at removing any dried M105 (or other compounds/polishes). Just spritz a bit of LT on the dried section, wait a few seconds and gently wipe away. It's great!

[Mary S]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Hi Mark, thanks for sharing the process and pictures with us. It is amazing how much you can learn from reading this site. You did a great job, what a great transformation in the paint!

[Ryan_Bihun89]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Nice job man. Came out great.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

A job very well done, Mark, especially for a first time!

When working M205 you can buff for a crazy long time, and if you're finding it hard to wipe off you should probably use a bit less product and buff longer than you probably did. M205 will go down to a very thin film that should wipe off with virtually no effort. Using too much, and trying to remove too soon, could cause wipe off issues with what is otherwise an incredibly easy to use product.

[DualActionDetail]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

Mark Kleis and Michael, I was using a lower speed because whenever I would turn it up I would get dust like crazy! I then realized that if I applied a very small amount of pressure to the polisher, the dust was minimized. I guess I was letting the pad float a little too much. I used 205 on a Jeep Compass (thread just posted) yesterday with speeds 4-5 with less product and longer cycles and had great results.

Thanks again!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Good to hear, Mark! Technique is so critical with this, isn't it??

[DualActionDetail]

Re: First time Cleaning/Polishing/Waxing (lengthy)

Yes! I'm glad I spent so much time in the "virtual" classroom, but once you feel ready it's time to put the polisher to the paint and see what you can do. At that point, any fears or hesitation need to go out the window: do what you know to do and adapt as you go. Plus it always helps to have a Smartphone to browse MOL for a quick answer!

Mark