Disappointed in Rupes pads- input needed please

[GenesisCoupe]

Hello All,

Super long story made short in to bullet points;

- Been detailing for 8 years now
- Owned PC, Griots, Rupes mark 1 and 2, Flex
- Recently bought Rupes pads to try
- Long time Lake Country pads user

- Helped a friend detail a newer black Audi A5\
- Terrible paint with holograms, tons of pig tails from previous detailer, full of swirls
- Paint was super soft, yet LC black pad and Carpro Essence wasn't "cutting" it.
- Compounded with FG400 and polished with Essence

Here is what happened;

My BRAND NEW Rupes pads- 3 of them are now RUINED.
Two of the pads have begun to tear from the velcro, and the third pad has blown up on me (pic below).

Keep in mind that in my 8 years of paint polishing i only destroyed 2 pads but that was when i was learning how to, and then the second time was an old pad that just needed to go.

Why did i destroy 3 of my brand new expensive Rupes pads?? All of them were the Medium cutting (green) pads too.

I did not use too much or too little pressure, did not curve the polisher in any weird way either, did not "work" the pad too much either.
I cleaned the pad after each section pass (6).

So what gives????!!!!


If you take a look at the pic below you will see that the pad BLEW up on me, and also caused me to hit my left thigh with the polisher. Thank goodness the car is not damaged!

This all happened on my Mark 2 Rupes. Any input is greatly appreciated.

[lane5515]

Wow, never seen that before. I use my Rupes 15 MKII, 5.5" green Rupes pads with FG400 all the time - it's a great combo. Maybe you got a defective pad(s)??

[asalesagent912]

You did nothing wrong. I had the same issue with my green 4 inch brand new pad. It just blew up.
some one else just started a thread recently about there pads. I really don't like bashing a company product
but its not right that we spend money on there products and they try to blame the user for it when there
are more than one person with the same issue.

[7.3powerstroke]

Just curious, what speed were you on? 15 or 21 throw?

I have recently seen a few others complaining about Rupes pads...

[refreshauto]

What speed, were you using. Sounds like the pad was to hot and it was to high a speed

[The Guz]

Dylan posted this

Sorry to hear about the issue with the pads - I've mentioned in other threads that we've noticed the phenomena with the use of some chemicals (polish or post use cleaners) that contain solvents. Mind asking what compounds you were working with when you had the pads begin to fail on you?

rupes pads are breaking down

[craigdt]

Too much heat is my first reaction.
But it sounds like you have plenty of experience, so maybe it had to do with the hardness of that particular paint?
Maybe you just ran into a bad combo?

[dlc95]

Did you prime the pad via KB method?

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

That is crazy Genesis, that is some odd pad failure

[Dan Tran]

Since this is applies to me, I want to add to this also.

I used my Rupes yellow and green pads with HD speed and Wolfgang in the past three days and I checked for temperature levels with just touch. Felt fine. I used 6 pads with speed yesterday combo of yellow and green.

And I noticed my green pads after using it in my second detail seemed to start to deteriorate.

Does this happen to do with something about what Dylan said about the type of compound/polishes I chose to use?

Also yesterday temps outside were 50 degrees and with the green pad and with the yellow one HD SPEED started to dust up. Whaddup with that?

Ps: Sorry to hi-jack this moment but since I am here with something Rupes pads related.