A few people have mentioned the finish of the paint on the Miata. I wanted to put together a quick summary of the components I used to polish the car and a high level overview of what the process looks like.
Supplies:
- Griot Garage Random Orbital*
- Microfiber Cutting Disc
- Polish
- Quick Detailer and Clay Bar Kit
- Larger Drying Towel (Post Wash)
- Smaller Towels to Remove Polish
Important: pair the polish with the cutting disk, they are designed for each other.
*The Griot random orbital is also re-branded as Makita, Dewalt, Adam’s Garage so if you take the time you can find whichever is the cheapest.
Process:
WASH:
Fill a bucket of water with whatever car shampoo you prefer, it is best to use the 2 bucket method, but it isn’t as critical since we will be polishing away any surface scratches you are adding to the car right now.
Dry:
Using the larger microfiber drying towel, this particular one (see above) absorbs a lot of moisture and makes it an easy drying process.
Iron X (Optional, but highly recommended by Dan):
Apply Iron X to the clean car and wheels, let stand for 5 minutes and rinse it off with pressure washer. This should ensure there is nearly no contaminants left in the paint. (Product Link)
Clay Bar:
Use the quick detailer and clay bar to remove contaminants on the whole car. You will usually see the most on the front bumper and hood as well as behind the tires where they kick dirt on to the body. Clay bar the whole car before a polish as you don’t want any dirt on the car when polishing… it could add more scratches that are more than superficial.
Polish:
From here you can take the car in sections with the polishing pad and polish. Each section apply two dime sized dots of polish to the polishing pad. When you polish that section stop and wipe off the polish. Repeat this process for each section until the desired paint clarity is achieved**.
Sections I split the car into:
-Driver’s side Half of Front Hood
-Passenger side of front hood
-Passenger front fender
-Passenger Door
-Passenger rear quarter panel
-Passenger side half of trunk lid
-Driver side half of trunk lid
-etc..
Work from the middle out of the car so you aren’t leaning over freshly polished sections of the car and potentially scratching the car with the extension cord or your clothes!
**Depending on the mileage of the car and number of previous owners you may want to be careful with how much paint is still on the car. In my case I don’t think anyone else had done any sort of polishing to the car so I wasn’t terribly worried about polishing through the paint. To remove the polish I use the smaller towels because they are cheap and plentiful.
Notes:
When you are done be sure to only wash microfiber towels with other microfiber towels. Cotton can leave strands in your microfiber which then leaves a lot of lint and hair on the car if you use them again.
Be sure to regularly blow out the polishing pad with an air compressor (maybe once before each section) otherwise polish will build up that ends up throwing dust everywhere.