"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

Mike Phillips · 09-06-2010, 10:11 AM

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

I'm a strong advocate of giving due credit where credit is due for both professional and personal reasons. To this point I want to give credit to Meguiar's for this quote and philosophy, or approach towards working on automotive paints. I learned this philosophy from Meguiar's when I went to work for them in 1988 as an Outside Sales Rep and Trainer for Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

I know they've been teaching this practice probably from their inception in 1901, that's over one hundred years. I don't want to claim anyone else's work and/or words as my own and it's my eternal hope that others will reciprocate this basic and professional code of conduct.

Now that I've given credit where credit is due, I would like to state that while I learned this philosophy or approach to working on paint from Meguiar's, I've never seen anything else ever written on this topic either on paper or on the Internet explaining the idea behind the philosophy.

So let me share,

What it means
Why it's important
How to put this approach into practice

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

The reasoning and logic behind this statement and approach towards working on car paint is for two reasons.

Reason 1 - Automotive paints are thin
Factory applied paint whether it came on a Model T or a brand new Ford Mustang is thin, very thin, thinner than most of us prefer. It's thin because it cost more to apply more paint in the way of materials, (the paint itself), and also time, as in the time it takes to spray the paint and allow flash time in-between each coating.

Time is money, so on an assembly line, or even in a body shop, more time means more money, for theses two reasons, cost of materials and time, paint is on a new car or paint from a body shop is thin.

Reason 2 - Removing below surface defects means removing a little paint
Below Surface Paint Defects are things like swirls, scratches, and etching like Type II Water Spots. Because these types of defects are below the surface level, that means they are "in" the paint, the only way to remove them is to abrade and remove a little of the surrounding paint until you level the upper most surface of the paint job until it's level with the lowest depths of the defects you're trying to remove.

In simple words... removing swirls, scratches and etching means removing a measured amount of paint.

Now let me tie the two concepts above together... follow me on this...

Paint is thin, removing defects means removing paint, there's not a lot of paint available to remove.

Starting to see the problem?

The top coat of paint on your car, no matter what type of paint system you have, (basecoat/clearcoat or single stage), is thin so you must keep this in mind anytime you're working on it or you let someone else work on it.

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

Here's the "why" part…
The reason why you want to use the least aggressive product to get the job done is so that you'll leave the most amount of paint on the car to last over the service life of the car.

Make sense?

If you want to get deeper... this means that in order to use the least aggressive product to get the job done... you need to have more than one product in your arsenal of detailing supplies or how can you do any testing?

If you're a detailer, or a car owner that likes to take care of your own personal cars, then you need to have more than one paint correction product in your arsenal of detailing supplies.

Tool Time
Products are like tools, they enable you to perform a specific procedure or task that you couldn't do otherwise . Just like a screwdriver enables you to either remove or install a screw, a quality compound or polish enables you to remove defects and restore a show car finish.

You need some tools in your tool box!
If you haven't already, consider adding a few tools to your tool box so anytime you're working on a car's finish you'll already have the tools you need to do some testing and then tackle the job.

A well rounded inventory would include,

Aggressive Compound for serious paint defects
Medium Cut Polish
Light Cut Polish
Finishing Polish
Hand applied paint cleaner
Cleaner/Wax
Non abrasive glaze or pure polish

Where the rubber meets the road...
Putting the philosophy into practice means anytime you're going to work on your car or a customer's car, instead of diving right in head first with your most aggressive product, first test to see if something less aggressive will get the job done.

You see, paint systems are different, some paint systems are more polishable or workable than others but you'll never know until you do some testing.

I always tell my son this because it's true...

"You don't know what you can do until you try"

In the context of detailing, this means you don't know if you can remove the swirls with a light polish and a soft polishing pad until you try.

Sure you can remove them with an aggressive compound and cutting pad but if you're goal is to preserve your car's precious, thin coat of beauty, then start each project by doing some testing and try to find the least aggressive product in your detailing arsenal that will enable you to get the job done...

Mike Phillips · 06-16-2011, 02:04 PM

Related article here,

Factors that affect how aggressive or non-aggressive a product is...

**chevchenko** · 08-16-2011, 11:43 PM

Has anyone tried Meg’s DA micro fiber correcting system on non-factory paint?
How about Meg 105-205 on non-factory paint? If I wanted to use something a bit less abrasive on non-factory paint, what would I use? What about Wolfgang swirl remover? How abrasive is it in comparison to Meg’s DA or Megs 105-205? I will be using a DA. Thanks in advance!

Mike Phillips · 12-27-2012, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by chevchenko

Has anyone tried Meg’s DA micro fiber correcting system on non-factory paint?
How about Meg 105-205 on non-factory paint? If I wanted to use something a bit less abrasive on non-factory paint, what would I use? What about Wolfgang swirl remover? How abrasive is it in comparison to Meg’s DA or Megs 105-205? I will be using a DA. Thanks in advance!

Yes.

I have two really cool cars that I've used the Megs MF DA System on that had single stage paint and the system worked really well.

1972 Challenger - Foam Pads - Meguiar's Microfiber Compound & Polish/Wax - Single Stage Black Paint

Here you can see black pigment building up on the face of the foam pad...

The after pictures...

1959 Cadillac Extreme Makeover

I never put the pictures and the write-up for this project but this was a single stage paint job too and it's not the factory paint. Shout out to Robert DiTerlizzi as he tag-teamed this car with me. Thanks Robert.

NOTE: Always do a Test Spot before buffing out the entire car.

This is the second single stage car I've buffed out using this new Tag Team, the first was this 1959 Cadillac 2-door Coupe de Ville and the paint really reacted well to these two products.

If you look closely, the paint on the passenger side fender is clear and glossy, that's because it was repainted with a basecoat/clearcoat system, the rest of the car has an older single stage paint that has dulled from oxidation and lack of any regular maintenance.

One of my goals was to maximize the gloss and clarity of the single stage paint surrounding the passenger fender so the car would have a uniform, clear, high gloss appearance.

I'll try to do the write-up for this car in the near future, this belonged to the Caddy King and I've heard he's since sold it.

Before

After

**PiPUK** · 12-27-2012, 08:17 AM

Just read this now that it has been bumped up - This should be the central mantra of detailers.

It is all too common for people to be using extremely aggressive and corrosive products because they 'work'. I do not doubt they work but we have 'detailers' who are using products which are more at home cleaning big rigs. This sort of links in to another post I made - lack of accurate chemical knowledge. For instance, people know that acid based wheel cleaners are aggressive so they use non-acid products. But they do not know enough to realise that the extreme caustic products will work really well but are extremely corrosive to metals, not to mention that they can destroy certain finishes of rim.

Valeters - yeah, use the cheapest, best value products. These will almost always be the most aggressive. Detailers - justify your claims, choose products which will present the lowest risk of immediate (and the often ignored, on-going) damage and accept that you have to pay more. As it stands, a lot of detailers are actually nothing more than valeters who also polish and seal.