I am about to get a new car and would like to start the habit of waxing the paint regularly. Are the cheap random orbit buffers (such as ones at walmart) effective enough or do the more expense models offer something worth the extra money? Please recommend brands and models. I see buffers that are 6 inches, 8 and 10 inches. Which is an ideal size for waxing a car. Thanks
The big answer is DON"T MESS WITH THE PAINT WORK ON YOUR NEW CAR OR YOU WILL REGRET IT! I regularly make furniture and finish it with automotive paint.I have the random orbital as well as a professional Makita polisher.Keep away from your car's new finish with these unless you want to mess it up.Yes use it on an old faded car though.If you do get one, definitely get the pro version and not a random orbit one which won't make it very shiny. Good luck.
Don't go cheap on a buffer. I know a guy who ruined a new paint job on his pickup truck when he was buffing the hood with a well-known brand name buffer whose name sounds very similar to "Crapsman" and the head of the buffer flew off letting the spindle drop onto the fresh paint. He was somewhat upset by this.
That said, on a *NEW* car I would probably hand wax only; if you really want to use a buffer go real light on it and always clean well before buffing. Machine buffing a new finish may introduce swirl marks that weren't there before.
Follow the mfgr's recommendations for waxing; if they tell you to wait a specified period of time before the first waxing, do it. Polish only until that time. You want the paint to set up/harden completely before sealing it with wax.
good luck,
nate
That would indeed be somewhat upsetting. On the cheap end of things I'm not so sure however. I got the $20 Ryobi 6" RO buffer in a nice case at 'Cheapo and so far after quite a bit of use I love it. It's compact so it's easy to operate with one hand, has plenty of power so it doesn't ever bog down and just plain works well.
Right, unless you are a pro, don't do anything but careful had washing and waxing until the new car finish is no longer new.
Wax it as little as possible, if at all. Every time you wash and wax it you will scratch the clearcoat/paint. I have a 15 year old vehicle that still shines like new but it's not because I wax it, it hasn't been waxed in years. I keep it out of the sun as much as possible and purposely avoid rubbing the paint with needless weekly washes. Wax will make weathered paint look better but I've never seen a study that demonstrated that waxing actually prevented weathering. It's a balancing act.
You don't want to wax the *paint* on a new car. They have a clearcoat over the paint, so the most you want to do is use 100% carnauba wax (absolutely no polish, which is abrasive). you don't need a machine buffer for applying carnauba wax over clearcoat, all that would do is wear out the clearcoat sooner.
in my opinion, you only need polish wax and machine buffer after the paint is starting to wear.
well said. all the cars i've ever seen that have peeling clearcoat [and i own one] are cars that have been excessively cleaned at some point in their history. i believe that some cleaning chemicals cause this.
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