Here's my problem. As a favor for my dad I agreed to detail his 99 Cobra since he's getting a little older now and can take the 3 or 4 hours it takes for a good wash/polish/wax detail anymore. Now this car is relatively new to him, he purchased it in the late fall last year and has kept it in his garage with a cover on it through the winter. This is probably the first detail the car has seen in a year since in the early spring he had some dents fixed and some dings, scratches and flaking repainted at a reputable paint shop and couldn't detail it due to fresh paint/clear.

I noticed while drying the car that the upper surfaces (hood, roof, deck lid) were rather rough. So I decided to go with 2 light polish passes followed by the claybar. Well after the 2 polish passes and using up 3 whole claybars (I pulled more crap off that car with the claybars then I ever had in my life) the clear was still relatively rough. So I put a good coat of McGuire's paste carnuba on it and buffed it out with myorbital buffer in order to prevent any further damage.

What could I do to get the clear on this car back into shape? Do I need to use a more abrasive polish compound or is it better to leave it as it is and just make sure it stays well protected with a wax/seal?

 

To get the surface looking like you want and fix the swirls and scratches you will need to use an abrassive polish. I would recommend going with a Porter Cable polisher and probably a medium and light abrassive swirl remover. With the Porter Cable you can get great results and do some major paint correction without having to worry about hurting the paint. It is really safe to use.Once you use a medium abrassive polish you will have to step down to a light abrassive to do your final polish. With the Porter Cable and theright polishes you can take the paint to a whole new level.

 

What redily available polish would you suggest for this. I have McGuire's swirl and scratch remover, would I want to use that or some other compound?

 

I'd try 3m perfect-it II as it is very highly abrasive and it should do the job well.

 

yah just did my whole care with 3m perfect it III actually, and loved it. give the whole car a good buff for a few hours and it will look like it came off the show room floor. oh ya and it will take care of your problem too.

 

Thanks for the tips, I'll try the 3M stuff and follow up with results.