Frustration with 3M products. Input appreciated.

[RoadRageDetail]

I will do the best I can to NOT make this post a book to read, but I want to include as many details as I can about what is going on since I don't have any pictures to use as examples and I am looking for some very specific info.

And Mr. Mike Phillips, I'm a huge fan. I've spent hours upon hours reading and watching anything of yours I can find. I only hope you'll spend a few minutes to review what I have presented here and provide a little feedback, or forward this up the ladder and see what your 3M reps think.

Before I say anything, please understand that I am very hard on myself and scrutinize my work to the 10th degree in every aspect before delivering a car to a customer. I always look at my work as if I were working for a fellow detailer. I check every inch with multiple light sources and from multiple angles. If I ever have to leave a defect on a car, for any reason, I am up front and honest about it immediately and do the best I can to explain anything I see going on with the car that I may not have been able to fix.

This past Thursday and Friday I had the pleasure of working on a recently aquired 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Zo6. I'm sure you already know the clear is on these can be tough on occasion and it just so happens she's black. The owner wanted PERFECTION So plenty of was involved. Everything came out great in the end, however:

I've used the 3M Perfect-It series for quite a few years and I am nothing short of happy with how it has been working for me until now. The rubbing compound is a bulldozer, the machine polish makes pulling out the marring and hazing a breeze or so I thought and the ultrafine machine polish is legendary. I am so comfortable with these products they could walk in on me naked and I wouldn't flinch. That's why it sucks so bad to make this thread, but I have to know what happened.

This car was foamed down, hand washed and clayed prior to beginning any paint correction. I started off using my Makita 9227c and a Lake Country 6.5" wool pad with the 3M Rubbing Compound, and found that it was correcting quite easily. There were not too many defects that needed more than a pass or two, aside from the swirls I was flattening out. The only place I had to get very aggressive was on the driver's side of the hood, with a scratch running parallel to the panel edge facing the fender and almost the whole length. That was it. I discussed wet sanding the remaining 2.5" that was left of the scratch with the owner, but we both decided it was best to leave it as-is and preserve as much clear as possible for the car's future.

The next phase of correction was another round of rotary treatment with a 6.5" Lake Country white VC pad and 3M's Machine Polish. There were some very tricky spots that needed several passes. I contemplated stepping up to a more aggressive pad but found with some patience and a little finesse everything the wool pad had left behind was getting cleaned up and ready for final finishing. I had found zero issues with anything I was doing at this point and the paint looked like all it needed was a little finer polish to make it a wet dripping mirror. Aside from a few very tiny (1/4" or less) random hard scratches in the clear from being a used car, it was virtually flawless from any direction I could see.

This is where I started getting frustrated. Since I could tell the clear needed a little extra work and had plenty of time to complete the car, I pulled out the Flex 3401 and combined it with a 6.5" Lake Country black CCS pad and Menzerna FF(PO85U) since I've had great luck with it previously. I applied XMT pad conditioner prior to priming the pad, and worked clean. I've become very comfortable with my Flex and I think the world of it.

The reason I didn't keep going with the rotary and progress straight to the Ultrafine machine polish was due not wanting to risk concealing anything. With this specific job I would only move to Ultrafine if I was 100% positive there were zero defects or machine marks left in the paint and this was not the case.

After wiping down nearly every 2x2 area worked with the Menzerna, I was looking at small, shallow, perfectly circular single line "cuts" in the paint. If compared to a clock on the wall, most would span from about 12 to 8 with a few from 11 to 2 or 1 to 4. They did not overlap each other, and were perfectly defined curved scratches. Some were deeper than others but for the most part fairly uniform. The PO85 would not remove them after two or three passes. It wouldn't so much as improve on their appearance. It became frustrating as I was encountering them all over the place. Every time I found a cluster of these, I had to stop and correct them with the Machine Polish on my rotary before reworking the PO85 and reinspecting. Because they were so randomly occurring, perfectly circular, and unable to be removed by a second pass, this makes me believe that they were caused by my rotary work and had nothing to do with the final pass I was making on the car with the orbital polisher

But lets move back a second. Before anyone things I wasn't working clean or paying any attention, nothing could be further from the truth. Plus, I was checking my work after every pass with the Machine Polish the first time around. Knowing this made me want to scream! I HATE having to do the same work twice when I feel like it could have been prevented. The Machine Polish finishes clean, however mildly dusty, and the paint is very clearly seen under work lights. If there were ANYTHING left behind after rotary polishing like I was seeing after the PO85 I would either have to be blind to miss it, or the Machine Polish was "lying" about just how much of the surface it was correcting.

There is only one reasonable theory I can come up with at this point:
The Machine Polish in the 3M Perfect-It series contains concealers that will mask defects created by compounding and polishing instead of achieving a full correction. By following the Machine Polish with a higher grade final finishing polish on an orbital, the concealers are thus removed and remaining defects are brought to light. Perhaps this is why the Ultrafine is only recommended for rotary use? Because it will also remove the concealers if used with an orbital?

I encountered similar issues using this method with a GTR but the FF had such an astounding correcting effect on it that after two passes on each panel, no traces of anything were left behind. I wrote off the few circular marks that popped up as a complication with soft clear and moved past it. The issues I had with this Corvette cost me several hours of painstaking labor and left me doubting every job I had put so much pride into with the Perfect-it series.

I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of this issue but I didn't see myself making this thread and I was stressed because I had worked myself into a time crunch. I decided to post this only to share my experience and see what feedback I got from other professionals with experience in 3M and help get some clarification on the issue. After this nightmare I'm thinking about jumping ship to the Megs 105/205 products.

If anyone's curious how the car turned out, I will never allow a product issue stop me from providing a quality service. This is from my iPhone.

[DetailedByPrecision]

The body shop I work at uses ultrafine with a rotary to finish down with a foam pad as well. there's always sanding marks left after i wash the cars.

[RoadRageDetail]

The body shop I work at uses ultrafine with a rotary to finish down with a foam pad as well. there's always sanding marks left after i wash the cars.

UF has almost zero corrective properties so if they're trying to finish cutting wetland scratches with it then they are using it incorrectly.

Right now my beef is with the Machine Polish and the fact it left the paint looking good until I followed it with a finer corrective product. It seems to have tried to hide remaining imperfections instead of either:

1. Show me that certain areas I was working with needed further correction
-or-
2. At least give me honest results when I seem to be looking at 90% fully corrected paint.

Still waiting on a reply concerning the "honesty" of this product. Until then I am forced to assume the worst and remove this product from my stable.