Very affordable but decent orbital buffer recc's?

[Capa]

Great choice on polisher and polish! You will not be disappointed. You'll have to test it on your vehicles. I got a similar orbital package about two months ago and figured out that my Lexus has soft paint (easy to make correction) and that my Grand Caravan has hard paint (hard to remove scratches and swirls). Depending on your paint, you may need more aggressive pads. I ended up ordering more pads because of the hard paint that I encountered. Good luck in your future endeavors.

 

[Vikas]

Originally Posted By: Capa
As of today Griot's Garage has 15% off everything and free shipping! I'd recommend their DA orbital buffer which cones with a life-time warranty. Their pads are ok; personally I'd get the Lake Country pads at Autogeek. I'd agree with the previous poster that Ultimate Compound is a great product. You'll need to follow up with a less aggressive polish to ensure that there is no hazing. Griot's 3 or Meguiars 205 would fit the bill.


If you want to stay with Walmart, pick up bottle of Swirl/X which is a poor man's substitution for M205.

 

[RTexasF]

Good choice on the Griot's. You'll find that more and different pads will be needed. Orange is the "go to" pad for correction with yellow needed on occasion. When polishing I have gone through 10 pads (orange & white) on a single vehicle and that's not hard to do. I fill a five gallon bucket with Oxyclean and water before ever starting. As a pad gets dirty/full of polish it goes in the bucket and is replaced with a fresh one. Prime the fresh pad and off you go until another is required. Stopping to wash and dry each pad as it clogs up is too time consuming as you can imagine. You need to also consider that pads tear and sometimes just come apart. If you only have one or two you're screwed.

Rejex is a good sealant but it is temperature sensitive and can't be used above 85ºF. It's 85º on a winter morning where I live so that kills it for me.

 

[wallyuwl]

OK, so I got the kit and used it once. Just as a point of reference, this is what I used:

- Griots Garage 6" orbital
- Lake County CCC pads (white, gray, blue)
- GG Maching Polish 2 and 4
- Rejex sealant
- Meguiars clay kit

The vehicle was my dad's 2002 red Chevy 1500 extended cab Z71 truck. Paint was in pretty good shape for the age. Had some scratches (some deeper than others) and swirl marks.

It was washed then clayed. Then the GG #2 polish was applied with the white pads. I didn't press hard. It took out a lot of swirl marks, but some were still there (as the video and bottle said there might be - particles are bigger). I wanted to do the #4 polish, but we were short on time and my dad was pretty happy with the results of the #2 polish. So we just put on the Rejex with the blue pad. Well, the Rejex took out pretty much all the swirl marks left, and many of the scratches/marks left.

A few notes:

- The orbital makes life MUCH easier. Amazing. Well worth the price. I'd highy recommend this one. It does get hot, though I was using it pretty much constantly for two and a half hours (you can still hold it comfortably, but just gets hotter than I'd expect or like).
- the maching polish 2 was hard to get off. Had to use a 10" Craftsman buffer, too hard by hand (and we didn't let it sit at all).
- I did two, more in some places, passes with the polish 2, and with the Rejex did just one.
- I may have gotten better results with a higher speed with the polish 2, not sure. I used the low end speed of what was suggested on the orbital for polish. For the Rejex, I used the highest setting recommended (can't remember the numbers).
- The Rejex came off VERY easy. We let it sit to a light haze, less than a half hour. It says to let sit up to twelve hours for maximum effect. But we didn't have the time. But it came out with a pretty good, deep, shine. And like I said, got out the swirls left by the GG polish 2. VERY satisfied with the Rejex.

Going to do our 2010 navy blue Equinox (has noticible swirls already) in a couple days, this time also doing the machine polish 4. The machine polish 3 is probably ideal for this one, but I don't have that and don't want to wait since while I'm back in WI I have my dad to help - not so when I go back to KY. Will also probably also do the polish 4 and Rejex on my mom's 6 month old Rogue.

 

[Smokefan1977]

Im pretty much over using foam pads. I went with the porter cable system and micro fiber pads from Auto Detaiiing solutions. machine washable and they have been washed probably 30 times. This is the system I use at my shop.

Lake country pads are nice but it plain nuts to purchase pads all the time and the micro fiber pads results are just as good if not better

You dont have to use mequires products to get good results. I finish usually with the Adams machine product, but use the DA microfiber compound for light cutting. If heavy cutting is needed you would use a buffer anyway

 

[RTexasF]

The Rejex filled the swirls it didn't remove them. There's nothing wrong with that just thought you should know. The foam pads are also machine washable....I've done that for years.