Meguiar's DA Polisher System

I couldn't hold out any longer, I have had my eye on this Dual Action (DA) Polisher for some time now and finally took the plunge.  Canadian Tire have them for $65, I looked around online and this seemed like a reasonable price.  It is a dual action polisher that attaches to your drill, they recommend a corded drill so the rpm's stay constant, I only had a cordless drill and it worked fine as long as you have a back-up battery on hand.  For a decent dual action polisher, you are looking at about $200 or slightly over so for the 5 or 6 times I will use this to polish our cars I figured this would do the trick.  Also, if I decide never to polish our cars again, I am only out $65, as opposed to $250.  I had read some reviews and most of them were positive noting that if you only polish a few times a year it would be the best way to go.

So off to Canadian Tire I went, got the polisher home, ripped it open and went to work.  My guinea pig would be my better half's Mazda 3 since I had polished mine by hand only a couple of weeks ago..... and it was agonizing to do by hand.  I also bought some Meguiar's Ultimate Compound while I was there to see if I could fix some of the clear coat scratches on my car, I'll give a few more details on that in a later post.

I washed the Mazda 3, broke out the polisher and Once a Year Car Polish (which I am now using for the second time this year).  The polisher fit nicely into the cordless drill, I gave it a couple of test spins and it held together just fine.  I applied about a tablespoon of polish to the polisher and started on the car hood.  It was easy to apply, but difficult to know how hard to push on the polisher and at times it was also a bit difficult to keep the pad flat on the car surface, like when reaching up by the wind-shield.

I made my way all around the car in about 45 minutes, the first battery died on me about 1/2 way through so I used less pressure after that to make sure I could finish the car.  The pad held up well, I have since used it on my fathers car and washed it, it is still in good shape.  Replacement pads with a small bottle of polish are $15 so it will be good if I can get a lot of use out of it, they are just attached to the polisher with Velcro so removal is a snap.

Overall the polisher did a good job, it never really removed any scratches but it did make the lighter ones less visible.  I think I will try it with the compound on some of the more trouble scratch spots on my car and see how it goes.  The polisher definitely saves a lot of time when it comes to polishing the car.  The wax and sealant I use just wipes on and off so I don't think I would use it for those.  I would recommend this product for someone looking for a safe, less expensive alternative to a full blown dual action polisher.  Also, if you are thinking about buying one of those useless rotary buffers just buy this instead.

Thanks.

Nu Finish Car Polish - Spring Cleaning

Ok, so it was time for spring cleaning, got a few scratches from the harsh winter and my baby needed good spruce up.  I decided to go with the wash, clay bar, polish and paint sealant routine.  The only problem was that I didn't have any car polish.  I was also trying to decide if I would by a DA polisher to apply the polish but in the end I cheaped out and decided to go with the hand application method.

I noticed from a prior washing that my car's paint was peppered with those annoying yellow spots from salt and other residue from our hard on paint winter.  I gave it a couple of shots of TRIX which was covered in a previous post but that stuff is just difficult to work with and smells horrible, although it does get rid of most yellow spots.  I thought I would try a different approach.

So I gave it a good washing, applied the clay bar and then started on the polishing using Nu Finish.  I was going over all the polish options at Crappy Tire but settled on Nu Finish for two reasons.... the price was actually on the high end so I thought it would be good and a customer there said he uses it all the time and it works great.  I applied it to one section and started rubbing to see if I could get out the yellow spots and sure enough they started vanishing.  The only thing I will say is that this took a LOT of elbow grease, two hours worth of rubbing in a circular motion, but the results were great.  I also got rid of several surface clear coat scratches with this product.

I followed up the polish with a good application of my Poor Boys Sealant and the car was looking as good as new (except for the bumper damage).  Although I used up the better part of a full afternoon I removed almost all the yellow spots, got rid of several surface scratches and shined up my Optima beautifully.  Next time I may buy a DA Polisher just to make it a bit easier for the polish application.  I also have to do my better half's car.