First time polishing. 2007 Acura TL.

[BDoggPrelude]

First off, I've always taken decent care of my vehicles. Wake up early to hand wash before the sun is beating down at least every other week. Try to clay bar 2-3 times per year. Wax probably 2 times every 3 months. I had always used over the counter products that can be bought at local auto stores. Recently I started looking into getting a DA polisher and getting a little more serious about things. I did a decent amount of research and ended up getting some more professional stuff:

-Porter Cable 7424xp
-Lake Country 5" backing plate and 5.5" CCS pads
-Meguiar's M105, M205 and M21

So this is my wife's 2007 Acura TL. To say that she doesn't take care of the paint whatsoever would be an understatement. It gets taken care of when I do it myself. Honestly, I work a lot and I really don't have time to detail 2 cars every week. She also does not avoid parking in high foot traffic areas, under trees, etc. So, the paint was pretty bad. Swirl marks, tree sap, water spots...you name it. I didn't really get a bunch of before pictures other than before I did the headlight restoration. I also didn't get any really good after shots because it has rained literally every single day in Denver for a month now. I finished it up pretty late at night and it rained the majority of the following day.

Like I said, this was my first time ever machine polishing a car. The entire process from wash to finish took me almost 14 hours. Lol. For the compound and polish I did 16x16 sections with 2 horizontal and 2 vertical passes with a 50% overlap on a 5.5" pad. I was going to finish it up with a coat of wax when it was all done but it was late and I was spent.

Here are a couple of before pictures:





After using Meguiar's Perfect Clarity headlight restoration kit:



After wash and clay bar:





After compound:





After compound, polish and sealant:

[sleeper]

super belle job!

Félicitation

[fly07sti]

Good job. Now is the fun part, trying to keep it looking that good. Hopefully the wife will help by not parking under trees and what not anymore.

[shagnat]

Excellent job....... sure can't tell it was your first detail job. And 14 hours is NOT a long time, especially with all the rain, thank goodness for a garage, huh?!

[Sicoupe]

Looks awesome! Nice work.

[BDoggPrelude]

Thank you. I was pretty happy with the results. Wish there was something that could be done about the crows feet on the hood. The downside to making the rest of the paint look so nice is it drew my attention to those a lot more.

[BDoggPrelude]

Washed the TL today and finished it off with a coat of Meguiar's Gold Class Carnauba Plus liquid wax.





Did a wash, clay, seal and wax on my TL recently too. The paint is a lot better on this one and, being silver, any light scratches are really not noticeable anyway.

[Mike Honcho]

That ROCKS!!!

[damaged442]

Always wanted to try the 105/205 combo on my TSX.

So far, I have just played with XMT 360 and it has worked pretty well.

Well done!

[shagnat]

Isn't 105 one of the most abrasive in the line?