Treat Painted Plastic Same as Metal?

[JayMartin]

Hi,
Relatively new detailer here, working on probably my 5th or 6th car. I am currently working on a 2005 Toyota 4Runner where the lower portion of the exterior has quite a bit of painted plastic panels. How do I treat these compared to what I have been doing to painted metal? My current process:
Clay
Menzerna PG 1000
Menzerna SF 4000
Wolfgang Deep Gloss Paint Sealant 3.0
Again, a newbie here, trying to learn, and open to suggestions.
Thanks,
Jay

[lawrenceSA]

Hi Jay and welcome to AG online.

You should always take extra care when polishing painted plastic. Firstly, it does not dissipate heat like a metal panel would, and so the risk of getting things too hot is increased. Secondly, (to my understanding) the actual paint itself would be different, allowing it to flex.

What machine are you using to do the paint correction?

If I may, I'd like to suggest that once you finish your existing PG1000, replace it with FG400 - you will get a better cut and finish.

Lastly, if you are not doing it already, a test spot must always be done - on each 'type' of paint e.g. OEM paint on metal, OEM paint on plastic, repainted paint on either, OEM paint on CF etc etc.

And your test spot should start off with the least aggressive combination of polish/pad/process, and progressively then increase until you receive the desired level of defect removal. The more aggressive you get, the more likely you would need to conduct a 2nd polish to refine out any holograms or DA haze - if that 2nd polish is justified in terms of a) the paint thickness b) the scope of the detail [is the customer paying for it] and c) is is there a discernable difference from your test spot that you as the detailer can see, and would your customer see it?

You may want to look into a 'medium' cut polish (Menzerna PF2300 [not sure of the new name] to stick with the same brand of products [I see some real benefit in first mastering one polish before moving on to the next, especially when starting out]) to compliment your existing heavy cut and finishing polishes.

Claying and sealing the plastic painted panels presents no differences to doing it on a metal substrate.

Lawrence

[JayMartin]

Hi Lawrence,
Thanks for the quick reply. I'm using the PC and an orange pad with the PG1000.
Thus far, all the cars I've done have been 10-20 years old with no serious care taken for the paint all those years. Thus I've been using the PG1000, thinking it would really go after the highly-visible scratches. Even so, it can be very slow. I can sometimes spend an hour on a single section trying to get out (or at least minimize) a bad scratch.
I'll be very careful on the plastic panels and will probably skip the PG1000 altogether down there.
Thanks again,
Jay