Porsche Cayman Paint Swirls

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I have a '07, metallic blue Porsche Cayman with terrible swirls in the paint work. I'm trying to use a Meguiar's G220 Polisher, Menzerna Polishing Pad, and Menzerna Intensive Polish to cut through them. The problem is it seems that it's taking FOREVER to make any progress. The most obvous example is the bonnet, which I polished for almost 40 minutes this morning and only removed the most minor of swirls. What going wrong? Do I need a new pad? How often should they be replaced? Or is the Porsche metallic paint just extremely hard?

[belleair302]

Sadly the G220 just doesn't have the cutting power. I think you are going to need to find a decent detailer with a rotary or a trusted bodyshop.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I'm going to try with a slightly more abrasive pad (read: cutting pad, not polishing pad). I don't see the G220 being the issue to be honest, worked fine on all my Alfa/Fiats.

[belleair302]

You may well find that the clearcoat on the Porsche is somewhat more difficult to 'cut' than on an Alfa / Fiat. The motor of the G220 just doesnt have enough grunt to spin at the speeds needed to smooth out the edges of the swirl marks.....

[Kidders]

A DA works well on soft paints but the harder the paint, the longer it will take. We wouldn't even consider using a DA for first stage correction. We would start somewhere in the middle, so something like Menzerna PF2300 or PF2500 on a Menz polishing pad and see what level of correction this would achieve before stepping up if needed, all done on a rotary.

[dry664]

Make sure you arent putting too much pressure on the G220 and stopping the pad from spinning. Your plate might have a black line on or something so you can judge rotational speed.
After that, get a microfibre cutting pad and a stronger polish like Menzerna Power Gloss PG1000 and give that a go. Porsche paint is notoriously hard. You just need the right combo

[mneame]

The G220 won't be the complete lack of cut problem imo. With the right combo of pad and polish you can still burn through the paint.

I'm not a huge fan of the Menz pads (mainly because I find they do not have enough cut) and normally go for the 3m ones. But the Menz polishes are normally ok. 3m green compounding pads with fast cut plus is pretty agressive. You could try this and then follow up with the Menz to refine? The other polish that I've just tried is Britemax. Their heavy compound seems to cut pretty well on harder paint and finishes down well.

Re the pressure to use, you want just enough pressure to stop the pad rotating in a circular motion but not the random motion. Also which cut method are you using, fast cut or slow cut? I find that different techniques work better with different paints.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

G3 Paint renovator and Maguire's soft buff 2.0 pad did the trick. High speed, light weight. Sealed off with Sonax color wax. All good.

Thanks for the help!

[xxplod]

To be honest, paint correction is not something you want to experiment with on your own P&J IMO.

I took my Boxster to a pro detailer in the south, the results were staggering. Well worth the £500 spent, still looks awesome 2 years later.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

£500 to clean a boxster is insane! All my gear was less than £200. Never be scared to try something yourself, never

[B0DSKI]

Get somebody to do it for you

[B0DSKI]

Rupes Bigfoot and appropriate pads/compounds will make short work of it btw