Favorite light to moderate polish for hard paint?

[BTLew81]

Title says it all. Looking for a light to moderate "maintenance" polish for harder paint. Open to any suggestions. Thanks!

[10secdream]

HD Adapt, Sonax Perfect Finish

[lawrenceSA]

To my mind it depends on how often these maintenance polishes are to be done, and how well the paint is cared for in between.

Personally, I would try and perfect my washing /drying technique, mitigating the risk of instilling swirls in the first place, and thus have to polish as little as possible. When I do, it will be by removing as little paint as possible to achieve the result I want, at the time. This can only ever be determined by performing a 'test-spot'.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/how-articles/50162-how-do-test-spot.html

So if the paint is maintained well you could get away with something like Menzerna SF4000, or if you needed more bite, PF2500. Anything more than that is no longer 'maintenance' polishing IMO but more correction work.

Then again, if the paint is well maintained, it may only need a 'cleaner-wax' type polish to get it looking good again.

The above assumes that the need to decontaminate is a given.

Of course you interpretation of hard paint and mine could also be different....

[silverfox]

I think its hard to just recommend a polish without knowing what machine and pads you plan to use. It doesn't matter all that much what kind of paint it is. For example I wouldn't use the same polish for an older DA polisher with a short throw versus a Rupes with a large throw. Some combinations are more suitable for SMAT than for DAT and vice versa. I prefer SMAT because I use a low powered older DA polisher.

I read hundreds of threads asking what's the best this or that polish without ever knowing the other information that I think is equally if not more important.