Lake Country pad woes

[greatwhitenorth]

I buy a lot of pads from various outlets, some for myself because I detail as a hobby, but mostly for my work that does high volume work.

I have been using lake country CCS as of late, and have never had a problem with them at all. However A couple nights ago I was starting a correction on my old mans little Toyota and I pulled out a BRAND NEW yellow LC pad and normally started using it. After my first series of passes when I put the polisher down to wipe away the residue I noticed the center of the pad was con-caved in. I had hardly started using this new pad and it seemed to be malfunctioning. :awman:
So i took the pad off and set it aside as I wasn't sure what was happening with it (and was switching to an orange pad because I had neglected a test spot)

After I had cleaned up the shop I decided I should write an email about the defective pad in case there was a bad run of them or other people had encountered this problem. The email I wrote was quite in depth and polite. (I used the "contact form" on the website so unfortunately I can't paste it here.) I was shocked at the passive, to put it nicely, customer service I received.

The gentleman replied with a simple:
"That “hollow” is due to too much heat and pressure applied during use"
I replied with:
Hi _______, thanks for the reply. The pad was fresh out of the packaging and used with a DA polisher. I had only gotten 3/4 across a Toyota Yaris hood (small) using moderate pressure. It hadn't even warmed up yet. Is there any other reason this might happen?
To which I got a lengthy:
On DA type machines, heat is a killer since they are causing friction

Conclusion:
I have used dozens of lake country pads without a single problem, I like them actually. But I find it hard to support a company who will not give the time of day to their customers. I did not want a free anything. I would have been happy with a "We'll have our people look into this issue, Thank you for the heads up"

Buff & Shine, you have my business.


sorry that turned into a big rant, I feel much better though! haha Im the MAN

[greatwhitenorth]

20642

[erichaley]

Contact Eric Dunn @ Lake Country(ThePadMan). He has always been a great help to myself and other forum members.

[erichaley]

BTW, based on your picture, the pad doesn't look all that bad. Did you try cleaning it?

[The Pad Man]

That would have been me that you contact and I apologize for not going more in depth. This is the best comparison I can help you with. If you take your hand and gently rub them together, you create heat caused from the fristion. Now if you put a liquid in the mix, squeeze your hands tighter and rub them together, the liquid may disappear from fristion and you are still creating heat. By laws of nature, heat rises, so it will try to pass through the foam pad. If you create more heat than you can dissipate, the heat start coming back down since it cant pass through backing plate. The foam can only take so much heat before the cells start to collapse which causes your concave in the middle. I hop this helps in clearing up the issue.

[greatwhitenorth]

The pad feels completely hollow between the backing and the face.
I haven't cleaned it because that's the result of about 60 seconds of polishing.

[greatwhitenorth]

That would have been me that you contact and I apologize for not going more in depth. This is the best comparison I can help you with. If you take your hand and gently rub them together, you create heat caused from the fristion. Now if you put a liquid in the mix, squeeze your hands tighter and rub them together, the liquid may disappear from fristion and you are still creating heat. By laws of nature, heat rises, so it will try to pass through the foam pad. If you create more heat than you can dissipate, the heat start coming back down since it cant pass through backing plate. The foam can only take so much heat before the cells start to collapse which causes your concave in the middle. I hop this helps in clearing up the issue.

Thanks for the reply Eric, happy to get an in depth response. I'm very confused about this issue. I had hardly started using this pad and none of my other dozens of lc pads have ever had any internal deterioration issues. As I had said the pad had hardly exceeded room tempature at the very beginning Of a polish.

[ken tuep]

I've also had a couple do this. I'm pretty sure its combination of operator error, and possibly defective pads. Out of 2 dozen pads I've had 2-3 do it.

I've only had 1 do it when it was brand new, so I understand the bewilderment.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using AG Online

[The Pad Man]

There will be more heat in the center as compared to the edges

[greatwhitenorth]

For the record I only brought this to public discussion forum after trying to get an in depth answer privately. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

I normally would have just shrugged this off and considered it a one off and just tossed it but after only getting one sentience replies stating the same thing I got a bit frustrated. I realize pads get hot. I use rotary, da, and rda polishers often.

Water under the bridge

[MajinAl]

B n s ftw
I never like lc pads
I've only used b n s
And megs never had an issue with them.
Except megs mf 1st gen

Sent from my SCH-I605 using AG Online

[Dr_Pain]

Well, I've purchased a few pads in my days (been detailing for quite a few years) and was anxious to try the CSS pads (after all the big reviews), and I have to admit that I will stick with the low profile LC flat pads. I guess it is a combination of the thickness (which does not dissipate heat as fast), pressure, the moist HOT environment of South Louisiana etc... but I've never had luck with the LC CSS, no matter how much finesse I bring to the technique. I will admit that I am notoriously hard on pads, and in all that those CSS just don't hold up to my abusive environment, products, techniques!

As for the flat LC pad :dblthumb2:

[Dogfather]

For the record I only brought this to public discussion forum after trying to get an in depth answer privately. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

I normally would have just shrugged this off and considered it a one off and just tossed it but after only getting one sentience replies stating the same thing I got a bit frustrated. I realize pads get hot. I use rotary, da, and rda polishers often.

Water under the bridge

IMHO I feel they should have sent you a replacement. It's obvious you have a lot of experience and are fully aware of the usual reasons for pad failure. You wouldn't have brought it to their attention unless the circumstances were quite unusual.

Defective pad
Send replacement
The customer is (almost) always right

[swanicyouth]

Why can't LC just possibly consider this guy knows what he is doing (experienced) and wouldn't be writing this if the pad was normal? I mean if you use 50 pads just fine, and after SIXTY SECONDS the 51st pad collapses, MAYBE, just POSSIBLY, (could it be feasible that) there COULD BE something wrong with that pad?

I've got CCS pads hot before and they never did that. This pad was only used for a minute.

[erichaley]

I have had a cyan 4" LC Hydrotech pad do the same thing (my dad was using too much pressure at a high speed), but I didn't contact LC about it because it was operator error, not LCs fault. FWIW, he also was using the pad for a short period of time.

I have also had a red 4" LC CCS practically disintegrate on me after leaving it in undiluted APC for too long. Didn't contact LC on that one either because, again, it was my own fault.

It doesn't matter who makes the pad. They eventually wear out from normal use - and do so much faster from abnormal use.

I get your frustration, I do, but if LC replaced every pad that was damaged because of our own doing, they'd be out of business in no time.