Removing swirls from hard paint

[Mike Phillips]

Just to double check....

You don't see any white pigment building up on the face of the pad indicating the paint is a single stage white paint?


Most companies use basecoat/clearcoat paint systems but a few skimp out and only use single stage for white vehicles. Saves a step, reduces costs, most consumers would never know the difference.

And the deal is.... generally speaking... single stage white paint is the hardest paint there is the most difficult to correct.

[postaltwo]

My wife has 14 Santa fe and the paint is indeed hard

[JarrettF]

Just to double check....

You don't see any white pigment building up on the face of the pad indicating the paint is a single stage white paint?


Most companies use basecoat/clearcoat paint systems but a few skimp out and only use single stage for white vehicles. Saves a step, reduces costs, most consumers would never know the difference.

And the deal is.... generally speaking... single stage white paint is the hardest paint there is the most difficult to correct.

Thanks Mike! I did not see any paint build on the orange pad I was using after several passes. In a situation like this where Chemical Guys V36 and an orange pad wasn't cutting it (pun intended), would you go for a stronger compound or a stronger pad, or both? I just need what I'm guessing is a little bit more cut.

[brettS4]

Normally I'd say just step up to a more aggressive pad and use the same product, but V36 looks like a pretty mild polish. With hard paint it's going to take several passes to see much correction. I'd suggest getting a more effective product and try that with your orange pad.

My situation was somewhat similar. I used to have an Audi with black paint. Normally Audi paint is pretty hard, but that particular car was easy to correct with Wolfgang TSR, which is about middle of the road for correction capabilities. I replaced the black car with an identical one with silver paint that is harder than granite. I had to go to the most aggressive pad and compound to get decent results. Hard paint is a real PITA.

Make sure you have several pads, too. If you aren't using a clean pad, or it heats up, you lose a lot of correction ability.

[David Hayward]

For myself I would use more aggressive pad with same polish because I have it all on the shelf ready to go doing work on a more professional level. If you are just doing this stuff on personal vehicles I'm pretty big into the game plan of just using what you have first before spending more money on stuff you may not need. Don't get me wrong I'm an addict with this stuff and love buying products so I won't stop you from adding to the collection.

V36 is very mild for polish and v34 isn't a super super heavy cut. In my opinion you are fine to switch to v34 on the orange pad and give it a go before trying anything else and buying a bunch of pads.

If that doesn't work, did you say you have mf pads? You could try those with v34 or v36 also.