[tedski]

Hey guys I just finished washing my car yesterday and I started claying it. I just picked up the meguiars ultimate compound and and i have the meguiars nxt 2.0 tech wax. I was planning on using the ultimate compound after i would finishing claying and then I would use the tech wax. I just wanted to know if I'm headed the right direction. I will post up pics when im done. Thanks

[aray]

Originally Posted by tedski

Hey guys I just finished washing my car yesterday and I started claying it. I just picked up the meguiars ultimate compound and and i have the meguiars nxt 2.0 tech wax. I was planning on using the ultimate compound after i would finishing claying and then I would use the tech wax. I just wanted to know if I'm headed the right direction. I will post up pics when im done. Thanks

Right direction, but I would not use ultimate compound unless you're trying to fix some issue with the paint, you don't want to compound it just for the heck of it. The ultimate compound finishes ok, but it's still somewhat aggressive.

[tedski]

i just have like little scratches on some parts of the car i would like to get rid. By aggressive do u mean it will hurt the finish?

[sdmeister]

Hey Tedski,

I am not personally familiar with Meguiars Ultimate Compound but I agree with Aray. If you are dealing with light swirl marks then stay away from a compound. Look for a lighter polish such as:
http://www.detailersdomain.com/Prima...-oz_p_391.html

Or I personally use
http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/...ortby=ourPicks

Good luck.

[Envious Eric]

no, you are not going to end up with good results

you cant go from a compound to a wax, no way around it. You need to wash it, clay the car, compound the car, POLISH the car, then wax the car (after cleaning the paint post polish-prior to wax)

so many people forget that step, and thats why cars look hazy even when just "detailed"

[aray]

Originally Posted by tedski

i just have like little scratches on some parts of the car i would like to get rid. By aggressive do u mean it will hurt the finish?

Hi Tedski,

Sorry for the late reply, I neglected to subscribe to this. The above responses are correct.

When you polish paint, you work from the most aggressive to least aggressive.

Imagine the most aggressive is actually wet sanding the paint. You're abrading the paint down to remove deep scratches or defects -- by removing the paint around the scratch down to the depth of the scratch. Compounding is one step less aggressive than wet sanding.

When using aggressive methods, you take a lot of paint off, and usually put additional lighter scratches in the paint, just like sandpaper leaves when used on any glossy material. (think haze) So when you use an aggressive method to address heavy scratches, you have to follow up with a less aggressive method, like a lighter polish, to fix the lighter scratches that you just put in the paint.

This is why you see a lot of the pro detailer write-ups listing 2-4 steps for paint correction before applying wax, something like: Compound -> Heavy Cut Polish -> Finishing Polish. If they stopped at the Compound Step, they would leave the little scratches that come from abrading the paint, and the finish would be hazy.

Ultimate Compound is a great product, as far as how aggressive it is, in my opinion it falls somewhere between M105 and M205 in Meguiar's professional line. M205 is a finishing polish, M105 is more of a compound. So what I was saying with it "sometimes finishes nice" is that you can get lucky and have "only a little" haze. But, I seriously doubt any of the pro detailers on here would ever finish a car with it.

If I were correcting a door scractch in a beater, what the heck, it's possible I might not follow up with anything. But I definitely would not take it to the entire car, I'd be removing additional paint that's not needed, and possibly making the car look worse by adding a hazed look.

One idea -- if you're new to detailing and just looking for easy light scratch removal using off the shelf products, try one of the "cleaner/wax" type products. Most of these have very light abrasives and can remove light scratches as well as give a coat of sealant/wax.

If you're near Advance Auto Parts they carry Griots, they have a One Step Sealant that I've used with decent results. The Meguiar's Cleaner/Waxes are also decent.

[badquenga]

Are you doing it by hand?


UC finishes down fine, these people must not have ever used it. I've done it by hand and by PC and you'll get great results. Anything more and you might as well start spending hundreds on detailing gear or a detailer. You'll be fine. I've been using it since it came out.

This car was polished with nothing but UC and an Orange CCS Pad. You can see the orange pads all over these pics and the UC on the windshield in the last one. Aggressive combo by some standards, but this car turned out great. This was my beater and I didn't want to waste my good compounds/polishes on it. I waxed this with Gold Class, which isn't as good as NXT 2.0. Again, I have much better waxes but keep cheap stuff around when cheap people want it.




How bad parts the car were:




1 More 50/50 for you:

[tedski]

hey guys, thanks for all the replies. They were really helpful but I switched to the meguiars swirl x at the last minute. I just finished it up tonight and I'm probably going to put the wax on tomorrow. I'm going to use the meguiars nxt tech wax.

[mills84]

I've never used the ultimate compound or the swirl x, but after fine polish and/or sealing the nxt 2.0 works really nice, especially on a dark color car. I took a pic of the nxt 2.0 applied to my e92 335xi this weekend:

[bonhamsurf]

Totally agreeing with the over aggressive comments. ALways best to start with the lightest/least aggressive then only use more obtrusive compounds if necessary.