Has this happened to you?

[Claude]

Hey Guys,

I was detailing my wife's 07 jeep compass a daily driver with 64k miles on it now.

Never really worked on removing the swirls on it because its Stone White, but it was getting out of hand.

So i decided to use the Meg's swirl remover system the 6' surbuf pads with griots D/A.
I have these pads for a while i wanted to give them a whirl.

For tight spaces i decided to use my old pc with a 4" plate and 4" surbuf pads.

The pads and the megs products are excellent the vehicle looks great no swirls whatsoever.

Ran the 6" with setting of 4-5 on Griots..
Ran the Pc with 4" 4-5 also.

I got to the front bumper so i decided the 4" would work perfect there, and in one pass it flattened the paint, no shine or anything, it looked like i sanded the bumper down. I looked at the 4" pad and the pad fibers melted..

I thought maybe the pad wore out because of use, but i havent used it before, so i switch to a brand new one and i primed it and slowed the PC down to 3 speed...and with one pass that pad melted.
I went over the areas with LC mf pads with megs product and got the shine right back and no swirls.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Seems to me the pad doesnt work on plastic bumpers..

Claude:buffing:

[davey g-force]

I'm tipping it has to do with heat dissipation on the plastic bumper.

[BradsDetailing]

Plastic bumper are pretty much on every car that isn't meant for heavy duty work or is a luxury car. Even most luxury car have plastic bumpers.

Plastic is a poor conductor of heat so most of the heat from polishing stays on or near the pad and has no where else to go.

The speed should be kept at4 or below and you should let the pad cool or switch it out with a new one.

The pad will work, it's still the same clear coat as the rest of the body but it the speed needs to be turned down a notch and the pad needs to cool off from time to time.

[davey g-force]

For it to melt the pad fibers though, it must have got pretty hot. You're lucky it didn't warp the paint on the bumper - I've seen that happen before.

Did you not smell it?

[Setec Astronomy]

I always warn people when polishing bumpers or other plastic parts of the car (side mirrors, lower skirts, trunk lid spoilers). As Brad noted, plastic has a lot lower thermal conductivity than metal, and although the harder plastics may be better (side mirrors, trunk spoilers) the flexible bumper covers are really bad, and you can melt the paint right off if you overheat it. The OP is lucky he just melted a couple of pads rather than the paint on the car.

[Claude]

i never had this problem before, i have buffed this bumper before but not with a Surbuf pad. I also turned down the speed from 5 to 3 and it still melted the pad. the LC mf pad woked great and i kept that at speed 3 also.

Lesson learned!

Thanx for the responses guys...

Claude:buffing:

[hernandez.art13]

When working on bumpers using let say PC why not check temperature of the bumper with your hand? I did this all the time with the Dewalt but you don't need to with a DA unless you keep having this problem.

Something is going wrong and better a pad then your paint.