It was by accident by the way. Normally I do Meguiar's rubbing compound with my rotary at a low speed > Meguiar's Polish > Meguiar's Liquid Wax by hand.

But today I was working on the car and at some point I don't know when.. I used the Meguiar's Liquid wax with my rotary (and cutting pad) to buff the car. I remember thinking "This polish is a lot more runny than I remember" and then after I finished the entire car, I was looking everywhere for the Liquid wax to wax the car and couldn't find it. And then realized I had been using that the entire time to buff the car instead of the polishing compound. I must have picked it up by accident.

Look:

They're practically the same colors and design, it's confusing. The rubbing compound bottle has a red car on it.


Anyway, I've detailed all my own cars but I'm not a professional detailer so I'm wondering if I damaged my car by using the liquid wax instead of the polish. My guess would be no because the wax is a lot more runny and water-like than the polish so common sense would tell me that there's less friction and cutting than the polish compound. From the looks of it, it doesn't look like I did any damage, as a matter of fact the car looks great. And I can't do anything about it now that it's already done but it'd be good to know for the future.

 

All you did was the more finished step instead of the coarser cut of the polish, as you said. If the car was already in good shape paint-wise you did the right thing. If it has some scratches that needed the polish to remove, then you made them very shiny scratches lol. It didn't hurt anything either way.

 

You didn't hurt anything but depending how much you tried to buff and what not you might have burned off the wax and will need to reapply it.

 

Gotcha, I figured as much. thanks for the input. My arms are fried I should really get a DA polisher the rotary is ridiculous it has so much kick

 

I don't think you hurt anything. So no worries.

I would recommend investing in a good Random Orbital. I've been using the Griot's Garage 6" random orbital for a few years now and I love it. The foam pads are so soft you don't need to worry about putting any swirl marks in the clear coat, you also don't need to worry about accidentally burning the clear coat when polishing.

It's an expensive setup, but worth it in my opinion.

If you still want to go back and polish, just use a wax/polish remover, then clay bar, polish, and wax

Good Luck!
-Icer

 

I always use my Griot's Garage 6" D/A buffer to apply my wax. You can get your coat much more even using the D/A.

 

I am not personally a fan of that polish, I have found that it doesn't cut enough for my purposes.

I have been using the Chemical Guys Cut 1.0 for most of my heavy scratches and need to find one of their lighter polishes at their garage sale next week.

OP, what pad did you use when you applied the wax?

 

I'm using a cheapo harbor freight rotary with adjustable speed (lots of kick, need to hold it with lots of strength and endurance so it goes even) with a backing plate from chemical guys.
The pad I'm using is chemical guy's orange cutting pad. I believe it's a medium/hard cutting pad which is why it cut despite using only wax.
Actually the wax I use is very runny and liquid so I imagine a lot of the cutting was due to friction. The cutting pad looks beat up now.

Here's what I mean: Using the wax and cutting pad, you can see how the BEFORE on the right side. the AFTER is on the left. The front bumper had a bunch of white specks on it, I thought they were rock chips but they buffed out.

 

That's probably just dried on wax that spun off the pad. No worries there.

 

Yeah i dont think its wax I'm not sure what it was. It definitely didn't come off when i washed the car. The white specks were all over the front bumper which is why i thought it was rock chips. It looks like the clear coat just took minor chips or something? bc it buffed out