Swirl Marks not going!
Discussion
Hi,
Recently purchased a VW Golf R that is a year old. I have been reading around how to look after the paint work as I thought when I purchased it the paint work was perfect. However, on closer inspection when I heard what swirl marks are my car is covered in them!! They are extremely fine though. Even if you get right up to the car you can;t see them unless you look at an angle in good lighting or shine my phone light directly onto the car. The car had been waxed etc by the garage so I did the following today to get rid of swirls with zero success:
1) Thorough wash down with wash mit and hot water with fairly liquid to strip off wax.
2) Wash down with power hose
3) Fully dried with a couple of microfiber cloths especially designed for drying cars
4) Used detailing lubricant spray and clay bar to remove contaminants
5) Washed down and dried again
6) Used Meguire's ultimate compound polish which says it is used for removing swirl marks with medium pressure and buffed with microfiber cloth. This did nothing.
7) Applied two more applications of this with harder pressure and circular motion technique and buffed again with microfiber. Again absolutely nothing.
These swirl marks are extremely fine and if you are not looking for them then the car looks stunning as shown in the first picture taken from further away. In fact I can't even get my phone to show them unless I hold up the bright light from another phone right in front of the paint. However, as shown by the second picture below the car has these circular swirl scratches. Every single square inch of the car is covered in them. I can't find a single piece of paint without them!
Please help. Any suggestions much appreciated.
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|https://thumbsnap.com/GEa4hQV7[/url][url]
Recently purchased a VW Golf R that is a year old. I have been reading around how to look after the paint work as I thought when I purchased it the paint work was perfect. However, on closer inspection when I heard what swirl marks are my car is covered in them!! They are extremely fine though. Even if you get right up to the car you can;t see them unless you look at an angle in good lighting or shine my phone light directly onto the car. The car had been waxed etc by the garage so I did the following today to get rid of swirls with zero success:
1) Thorough wash down with wash mit and hot water with fairly liquid to strip off wax.
2) Wash down with power hose
3) Fully dried with a couple of microfiber cloths especially designed for drying cars
4) Used detailing lubricant spray and clay bar to remove contaminants
5) Washed down and dried again
6) Used Meguire's ultimate compound polish which says it is used for removing swirl marks with medium pressure and buffed with microfiber cloth. This did nothing.
7) Applied two more applications of this with harder pressure and circular motion technique and buffed again with microfiber. Again absolutely nothing.
These swirl marks are extremely fine and if you are not looking for them then the car looks stunning as shown in the first picture taken from further away. In fact I can't even get my phone to show them unless I hold up the bright light from another phone right in front of the paint. However, as shown by the second picture below the car has these circular swirl scratches. Every single square inch of the car is covered in them. I can't find a single piece of paint without them!
Please help. Any suggestions much appreciated.
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/GEa4hQV7[/url][url]I'm no expert but I don't think you are supposed to apply your polish by hand in a circular motion as this can actually introduce swirls.
Also removing swirls by hand is very hard work and will take ages. How long were you at it? Even with my (cheap) DA machine polisher it'll take me 4-5 hours just to do this stage
Also removing swirls by hand is very hard work and will take ages. How long were you at it? Even with my (cheap) DA machine polisher it'll take me 4-5 hours just to do this stage
Edited by skinny on Thursday 22 March 20:29
Agreed, you'll never get rid of them by hand so invest in a decent DA polisher such as the DAS Pro 6 and then spend an unfathomable amount of time trying to understand the assorted pad / compounds and processes and then an unfathomable amount of money buying the aforementioned gear...
Spend about two days, polishing, refining and protecting and then stand back, crippled and deaf but with a very shiny car, which... as soon as you go near it with even the softest of wash mitts, will start to attract very slight surface swirls again and then treat the neighbours to a fine display of swearing and hurling of the aforementioned gear in to the corner of the garage,
This is pretty much how my attempts go... but in all seriousness, hand polishing won't remove those swirls and whilst certain products will mask them, they aren't a long term fix. Machine polishing and then a decent top coat to protect is the only solution and then the wash process thereafter is crucial, in essence you don't want to touch the car with anything mitt / sponge / cloth wise... hence, there are some properly anal wash techniques to try and reduce the issues.
It's satisfying once done, laborious to do and it's frustrating when it's back to how it was after a matter of weeks but such is life!
Spend about two days, polishing, refining and protecting and then stand back, crippled and deaf but with a very shiny car, which... as soon as you go near it with even the softest of wash mitts, will start to attract very slight surface swirls again and then treat the neighbours to a fine display of swearing and hurling of the aforementioned gear in to the corner of the garage,
This is pretty much how my attempts go... but in all seriousness, hand polishing won't remove those swirls and whilst certain products will mask them, they aren't a long term fix. Machine polishing and then a decent top coat to protect is the only solution and then the wash process thereafter is crucial, in essence you don't want to touch the car with anything mitt / sponge / cloth wise... hence, there are some properly anal wash techniques to try and reduce the issues.
It's satisfying once done, laborious to do and it's frustrating when it's back to how it was after a matter of weeks but such is life!
VW paint is rock hard so you will need a DA polisher and probably some better polishes. As davie said, Das6 will do.
With the paint being a year old i would go with a medium cut approach with a DA myself because you'll want to preserve that clear coat for future years.
You must protect by seal and wax on the car after to avoid swirls forming again.
Looks like you've had someone before using a money laundering cleaning operation
With the paint being a year old i would go with a medium cut approach with a DA myself because you'll want to preserve that clear coat for future years.
You must protect by seal and wax on the car after to avoid swirls forming again.
Looks like you've had someone before using a money laundering cleaning operation
As above,
get yourself a DAS 6 pro, maybe use something like Scholl s20 as it's a single step compound it'll remove the swirls and buff up a nice gloss too. Then you just need to apply a Wax/protection product.
Using a two bucket with grit guards will help reduce wash swirls. Also drying your car can induce swirls too (basically touching your paint damages it lol)
get yourself a DAS 6 pro, maybe use something like Scholl s20 as it's a single step compound it'll remove the swirls and buff up a nice gloss too. Then you just need to apply a Wax/protection product.
Using a two bucket with grit guards will help reduce wash swirls. Also drying your car can induce swirls too (basically touching your paint damages it lol)
My patience is wearing thin with mine...
It was horrific when I bought it, looked almost matt grey so a solid week of machine work starting with heavy cut pads and Autosmart Evo 3 and then gradually working my way to Evo 1 and some light polishing pads, it was very much improved. It's had several coats of Topaz and some Autosmart hard wax for the past few months and has barely turned a wheel.
Couple of weeks back, I went over the whole car again with orange Hex Logic pads and SOnax Perfect Finish to get rid of the very light haze etc, another couple of coats of polish and then waxed and it was looking very good. It was out once, got washed... snow foamed, rinsed, very light once over with a soft mitt and left to dry naturally in the wind and back in the garage.
Went out last night, power outage and so armed with my LED torch... and bugger me, the swirls are back already so all I can assume is the wax removal and / or wash mitt have done the damage so I'm at a loss as I make sure the micro-fibre cloths are brand new and very soft and the wash process and indeed the wash mitt are new and good quality and I'm very careful washing it.
No idea if it's just silly soft paint or if the Topaz / wax combo is actually masking the light swirls, naked in daylight and then perhaps the snowfoam and wash process is stripping it back off again thus revealing the swirls... granted, looks OK out in the daylight but under the LEDs it's not perfect. Can't decide if I need to be a bit more aggressive with the machine polish stage, ie Sonax Perfect Finish isn't quite enough to lift the light swirls...
Frustrating to be honest, but however back on track... I'd be wary of using a heavy cut compound on the Golf above, granted I did but my paint was that far gone it couldn't be any worse but a heavy compound will need refined and finished which is very labour intensive and if you don't, it can leave terrible holograms and haze in the clear coat. A 'one stage' compound that cuts initially then breaks down in to a polish as you work it with the polisher would be the best bet, but may not be enough to deal with the swirls... I refer thee back to my issues with Sonax.
The hardest bit for me is trying to work out what product / pad will deal is aggressive enough to deal with 90% of the swirls etc but isn't too aggressive as to create further issues... it's the old adage of use the combination that is just enough to get the job down, that's what I struggle with so hence find myself pouring over forums and Youtube videos trying to suss it all out!
It was horrific when I bought it, looked almost matt grey so a solid week of machine work starting with heavy cut pads and Autosmart Evo 3 and then gradually working my way to Evo 1 and some light polishing pads, it was very much improved. It's had several coats of Topaz and some Autosmart hard wax for the past few months and has barely turned a wheel.
Couple of weeks back, I went over the whole car again with orange Hex Logic pads and SOnax Perfect Finish to get rid of the very light haze etc, another couple of coats of polish and then waxed and it was looking very good. It was out once, got washed... snow foamed, rinsed, very light once over with a soft mitt and left to dry naturally in the wind and back in the garage.
Went out last night, power outage and so armed with my LED torch... and bugger me, the swirls are back already so all I can assume is the wax removal and / or wash mitt have done the damage so I'm at a loss as I make sure the micro-fibre cloths are brand new and very soft and the wash process and indeed the wash mitt are new and good quality and I'm very careful washing it.
No idea if it's just silly soft paint or if the Topaz / wax combo is actually masking the light swirls, naked in daylight and then perhaps the snowfoam and wash process is stripping it back off again thus revealing the swirls... granted, looks OK out in the daylight but under the LEDs it's not perfect. Can't decide if I need to be a bit more aggressive with the machine polish stage, ie Sonax Perfect Finish isn't quite enough to lift the light swirls...
Frustrating to be honest, but however back on track... I'd be wary of using a heavy cut compound on the Golf above, granted I did but my paint was that far gone it couldn't be any worse but a heavy compound will need refined and finished which is very labour intensive and if you don't, it can leave terrible holograms and haze in the clear coat. A 'one stage' compound that cuts initially then breaks down in to a polish as you work it with the polisher would be the best bet, but may not be enough to deal with the swirls... I refer thee back to my issues with Sonax.
The hardest bit for me is trying to work out what product / pad will deal is aggressive enough to deal with 90% of the swirls etc but isn't too aggressive as to create further issues... it's the old adage of use the combination that is just enough to get the job down, that's what I struggle with so hence find myself pouring over forums and Youtube videos trying to suss it all out!
Davie said:
Went out last night, power outage and so armed with my LED torch... and bugger me, the swirls are back already so all I can assume is the wax removal and / or wash mitt have done the damage so I'm at a loss as I make sure the micro-fibre cloths are brand new and very soft and the wash process and indeed the wash mitt are new and good quality and I'm very careful washing it.
No idea if it's just silly soft paint or if the Topaz / wax combo is actually masking the light swirls, naked in daylight and then perhaps the snowfoam and wash process is stripping it back off again thus revealing the swirls... granted, looks OK out in the daylight but under the LEDs it's not perfect. Can't decide if I need to be a bit more aggressive with the machine polish stage, ie Sonax Perfect Finish isn't quite enough to lift the light swirls...
Frustrating to be honest, but however back on track... I'd be wary of using a heavy cut compound on the Golf above, granted I did but my paint was that far gone it couldn't be any worse but a heavy compound will need refined and finished which is very labour intensive and if you don't, it can leave terrible holograms and haze in the clear coat. A 'one stage' compound that cuts initially then breaks down in to a polish as you work it with the polisher would be the best bet, but may not be enough to deal with the swirls... I refer thee back to my issues with Sonax.
The hardest bit for me is trying to work out what product / pad will deal is aggressive enough to deal with 90% of the swirls etc but isn't too aggressive as to create further issues... it's the old adage of use the combination that is just enough to get the job down, that's what I struggle with so hence find myself pouring over forums and Youtube videos trying to suss it all out!
It'll be a combination of fillers in the Evo range of polishes and yet more fillers in the Topaz leading you to believe you've achieved a largely defect free finish - cue a wash or two or the car getting rained on and the fillers will be removed, leaving you with the true finish.No idea if it's just silly soft paint or if the Topaz / wax combo is actually masking the light swirls, naked in daylight and then perhaps the snowfoam and wash process is stripping it back off again thus revealing the swirls... granted, looks OK out in the daylight but under the LEDs it's not perfect. Can't decide if I need to be a bit more aggressive with the machine polish stage, ie Sonax Perfect Finish isn't quite enough to lift the light swirls...
Frustrating to be honest, but however back on track... I'd be wary of using a heavy cut compound on the Golf above, granted I did but my paint was that far gone it couldn't be any worse but a heavy compound will need refined and finished which is very labour intensive and if you don't, it can leave terrible holograms and haze in the clear coat. A 'one stage' compound that cuts initially then breaks down in to a polish as you work it with the polisher would be the best bet, but may not be enough to deal with the swirls... I refer thee back to my issues with Sonax.
The hardest bit for me is trying to work out what product / pad will deal is aggressive enough to deal with 90% of the swirls etc but isn't too aggressive as to create further issues... it's the old adage of use the combination that is just enough to get the job down, that's what I struggle with so hence find myself pouring over forums and Youtube videos trying to suss it all out!
cheers
Chris
xjay1337 said:
If you are using a DAS6 , get a Das6 PRO and use orange CG Hexlogic pad with something like Scholl S3, with the correct technique you will achieve a good finish without the need for further refinement.
Thanks gentsIt's a difficult one to describe but the car was given a several stage polish about 10 months ago and was excellent but obviously a few months have taken their toll so last week I went over it again with the DAS Pro, Hexlogic orange and white pads and Sonax Perfect finish and checked my work under the lights and it was 90% there. One layer of Topaz and then topped off with Autosmart hard wax and it looked spot on. It was then washed > proper rinse, snow foam then wash down with a mega soft mitt and left to dry naturally and hasn't been used since.
So, what I can't figure out is where the swirls stemmed from... be it applying / removing the Topaz which the wax then masked or if the wash mitt has done the damage (if you want to call it damage!) or if the snow foam and wash process has stripped off the protection.
I'll go over it again with the machine, same pads and perhaps try the likes of Scholl S3 as the Sonax doesn't have a very aggressive cut, though did deal with the light surface swirls the last time which make me think it's either happened on removing the polish and / or wax or when it was washed.
Bloody frustrating, more so given it's all the panels and the thing is huge...
Unless you know what you are doing with a machine polisher its way too easy to make matters worse. Spend some £££'s with a professional detailer and have him seal the pain with something like Gtecniq crystal serum. We have it on the wifes car and it seems to help it resist swirl marks
wolly88 said:
Have you tried a panel wipe after your polish step to remove polishing oils that can mask swirls?
No, not a thing I've done to be honest... just work the Sonax Perfect Finish with an orange pad and quite firm pressure then work it down to the refining stage as it were and to be fair, it seems to work and leaves a swirl free surface. I then applied the polish, buffed off and then the wax which should seemingly be fine according somebody who (seemingly) knows about this stuff - though perhaps the Topza then the wax isn't a good move? I'm confident that I had the swirls removed, I checked under the LED light before applied the polish so it must be the polish on / off and / or the wax on / off stages that is causing the very light surface swirls. Or, as mentioned it's the wash stage but I'm always very very careful and this is only the second time it's been washed with a mitt so seems unlikely but then any paint contact is bad so perhaps that's where my issue stems from.
blueg33 said:
Unless you know what you are doing with a machine polisher its way too easy to make matters worse. Spend some £££'s with a professional detailer and have him seal the pain with something like Gtecniq crystal serum. We have it on the wifes car and it seems to help it resist swirl marks
Thanks, but I'm 100% sure I'm not making it worse... the car was a complete riot when I bought it having had a life of car washes and brushes so there's was almost no clarity to the paint, I wasn't even aware it was metallic with a sort of purple hue until it was machine polished a few months ago using the Evo 1 and 3 then Topaz and it was fine. This last quick top up with Sonax Perfect Finish has definitely not caused the issues, it resolved them as the paint was clear under the LED lights so the swirls have been added at the latter of the stages, ie polishing by hand / applying the wax. Yes, having a pro do it would be good but I'm not anal about it, it gets used and abused and has a fair few marks and dings and I'm happy to do it myself and get it 75% there, it's just frustrating that having spent two days on it... I've undone my work by marring the paint somehow, post machine stage. Appreciate we're off on a tangent here, bit of a thread hijack but I guess it'll help the OP too as it's a similar situation.
Cheers
Edited by Davie on Thursday 29th March 16:39
Davie have you tried claying the car?
When I give mine a proper session, I'll clay it (using a mitt) after washing and also decontaminate using that metal fall out remover stuff.
I don't know the products you are using (there are so many out there!!) but some polishes contain fillers so try aren't actually physically removing the fine marks, and the fillers don't tend to last that long.
When I give mine a proper session, I'll clay it (using a mitt) after washing and also decontaminate using that metal fall out remover stuff.
I don't know the products you are using (there are so many out there!!) but some polishes contain fillers so try aren't actually physically removing the fine marks, and the fillers don't tend to last that long.
Davie said:
It's a difficult one to describe but the car was given a several stage polish about 10 months ago and was excellent but obviously a few months have taken their toll so last week I went over it again with the DAS Pro, Hexlogic orange and white pads and Sonax Perfect finish and checked my work under the lights and it was 90% there. One layer of Topaz and then topped off with Autosmart hard wax and it looked spot on. It was then washed > proper rinse, snow foam then wash down with a mega soft mitt and left to dry naturally and hasn't been used since.
So, what I can't figure out is where the swirls stemmed from...
Also, are you washing it straight after you've waxed it?So, what I can't figure out is where the swirls stemmed from...
Edited by skinny on Monday 2nd April 20:50
Edited by skinny on Monday 2nd April 21:02
Not worth the effort, mine is similar.
Get yourself a very long lasting synthetic wax with sealant in it. Fusso 99 is a good one. Apply after youve clayed and used panel wipe. Do one coat of Fusso, check the swirls. If still visible do another coat and maybe a third.
Will last about a year its brilliant stuff.
Dont use SRP or other glaze first or the fusso wont bond prroperly and will come off
Get yourself a very long lasting synthetic wax with sealant in it. Fusso 99 is a good one. Apply after youve clayed and used panel wipe. Do one coat of Fusso, check the swirls. If still visible do another coat and maybe a third.
Will last about a year its brilliant stuff.
Dont use SRP or other glaze first or the fusso wont bond prroperly and will come off
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