Pad suggestions for GM Paint

[BTLew81]

Recently purchased a 2023 GMC Acadia in ultra metallic blue. Off the dealer lot so they threw in some swirls and rods at no extra charge!

I did a quick polish and lsp to keep it protected until spring. The paint, to me, seems hard. I’ve got some flat green pads and hydro tech orange, but I am thinking I need to update a bit. Looking mostly for a general purpose polishing pad, as I have plenty of cutting and also some Mf pads.

also open to polish suggestions. 😀

thanks.

[PaulMys]

You can never go wrong with the Lake Country Orange Flat Pads.

Those are always my go-to pads.

[Paul A.]

Every GM paint I've done has been on the hard side. I'd start with a test spot using LC orange flat pad and adjust from there. My favorite cutter on hard paint is Sonax CutMax.

I wouldn't be surprised if you need to break out your cutting pads. What do you have for those?

[BTLew81]

The blue hydro tech and I believe some flat orange and yellow.

[Paul A.]

How about cutting compounds?

If i remember right, both the LC yellow and blues are more cut than orange.

Seeing as it's a '23 model i would still want to start a test with the orange and a cut compound and see what that tells you.

[BTLew81]

No real compounds. Open to suggestions. One steps preferred.

[Paul A.]

If you end up going with a coarser pad than orange you may find the need to refine any haze.

My recommendation would be Sonax CutMax and orange and see what that gets you. That exact combo for me has yielded just about LSP ready finishes.

Another favorite of mine is Griots Correcting Cream. I find that finishes well after cutting pretty good.

Another favorite is 3D One, a truly engineered 1 step with some cut. What i like about One is I can quickly do a 2 step correction by simply changing up to a white or black pad. Helps if you got some pad haze after the cut step.