The clay bar removes all the little bits of crud that are stuck in your clear coat, so when you polish, you're not grinding in little bits of things from the environment. You wash (with Dawn, for instance, if you want to remove all wax), two bucket method, clay-bar with clay bar lubricant, wash again with Dawn if you're stripping the car down, then you use polish where necessary. After done, wash, then use a sealant or wax (I prefer polymer sealants).

If you want swirl-free results, that's the only way to fly. Black shows EVERY swirl in most types of lighting. I'd suggest just getting used to the paint not being perfect.

 

Just a reminder: Buffing will leave the Jeep looking new, but everytime you buff it you're eating up a small amount of the clearcoat. So there are a limited amount of times you can buff one out before you hit the basecoat. Use caution. NO paint is ever as nice as the factory paint job.

 

I used scratch x 2.0 to get rid of the pinstripes. It works really well and got rid of some that I thought were too deep. I may need to polish it a bit though because I can see where I used it in the right light. Overall though, it's better now.

 

Thanks. I'll be trying some of this stuff out next week while off from work.

 

I've had pretty good luck using nu finish scratch doctor, as long as the clear coat is the only thing that is scratched.

 

Yup .. I wouldn't buff it out more than once or twice ... If you are gonna be off-roading a lot you gonna have to say screw it and just leave the pin stripes. That is what I did. If it gets bad enough just have a Body shop re-clear the entire vehicle and it will look good as new!

 

I've buffed out my jeep probably 10 times with a compound then polish, then wax. I'm sure at some point you'd work all the way through the clear, but its gonna take more than 2-3 times. I've also had to go as far as wetsanding the entire jeep (2000 grit) then compounding it, but I've REALLY put some gouges in this jeep over the 85K miles and its still show room condition when I detail it.

sidenote, I wouldnt recommend wet-sanding and polishing on a dark color unless you've done it a few times before, but this is the only way to permanently remove deeper scratches.

 

Definatly a misnomer that has been passed around. You only have to worry if you take your vehical to some shady shop that charges 100 dollars for a full buff and wax. As long as you know what your are doing or take it to a professional detailer, you have nothing to worry about.

Typically a vehical will come from the factory with a paint thickness about 100 microns and clear coat thickness of about 80-100 microns. (Depends greatly on manufacturer). Each pass with a buffer and medium cut compound(I use a PorterCable with Mezerna products) will typically remove about 3 microns per pass. It depends greatly on how hard/soft the factory paint is and what pads/cutting compound you are using. I always use a paint thickness gauge when I detail my cars and typically remove 3-5 microns on majority of the car and up to 10 microns on heavily marred areas (rear and fenders). Basically if you detail your vehical 2 times a year and use proper protection, you can easily get 20 years out of the factory paint without any problems.

The belief that no paint is ever as nice as factory couldnt be more wrong. All factory paint jobs all come with some amount of orange peel and use average paint products. You can definatly get paint jobs that are significatly better than factory if you are willing to pay for quality.

 

^^^^^100% agree.

 

Back on the "no paint is better than factory paint", The last three vehicles I've owned I've wetsanded down, used a high cut with a polishing wheel, then a low cut/polish with the wheel, then hand waxed and spray waxed to remove any resedue.

The result of all this work is no more orange peel, no surface scratches, and a much more resiliant finish, much better than factory.