After lurking for a while on Autopia, I decided to join and do some research. I ordered a Porter Cable and a stash of detailing supplies and went to work. The result: a swirl-free Z, and I couldn't be happier. Just thought I'd share some pics.

Here's two before pics of the paint:





Here are the afters:











Just wanted to share, I'd definitely recommend Autopia to those wanting to get rid of swirls. Comments welcome

 

wow, your Z looks even better, where you get that stuff anyway?

 

Wow nice! I'm not so great at detailing, would you share some of the steps you took?

Gary

 

Yea and the parts you bought

 

Looks good...wth is Autopia?

 

autopia dot org is a forum for car detailing enthusiasts.... great job on the detail, like stated above, do you mind sharing some steps with us?

 

Thanks for the compliments! Here's the process I used:

Dawn wash using two bucket method (one for soap, one for rinsing)
Clay the car using ClayMagic
Optimum Polish using my PC
Meguiar's #21 to seal the paint using the PC as well

Tires were cleaned with OTC stuff from Autozone...maybe Bleche White for the tires and I forget the stuff used on the wheels. They were dressed with #1 dressing. I think that's about it, plus some Turtle Wax Chrome Polish on the exhaust and RainX on the windows. Hope that helps.

 

unreal! i wonder if i can get the same results on my sb...

btw: whats a porter cable?

 

buffer

 

Love it, looks gorgeous. Now quick question, are all Z's a little tilted to the right? I noticed mine was also like that.

 

damn I must be the only one who cant get all the swirls out, I used a 3 step process with my PC and still have swirls.

What pad did you use, I think thats my problem I dont think its rough enough, I used the lake orange pad with the heavy swirl remover, still have swirls!!!

 

Looks great!

IMHO, I wouldnt use Dawn Detergent soap!

 

+1 on not using Dawn.

My steps are even simpler.

1. Call the detailer
2. Detailer comes and details the car.

 

very nice job. I hope to detail like this soon

 

dawn wont hurt the car but it will strip the wax, so its good to use if you plan on waxing as well but you shouldnt use it in between waxes...from what i understand

 

Yea dawn takes all the old wax off the car. If not your just throwing wax on wax....

I just bought the zanio kit. I really need get this done. I can start to see swirls in my PPW

 

Dawn is fine to use to clear waxes off the paint. I've only had the car for about 2 months and this was the first time I had a chance to detail it, so I wanted to make sure there was no other wax on the paint. I don't use it for every wash, maybe twice a year.

Thanks for the compliment.

I used a white LC pad w/ the Optimum Polish. My swirls weren't too bad, so that was fine. I'll probably use the orange LC pad w/ the Optimum Compound on my dad's truck b/c it's black and has spent lots of time in the woods.

What products are you using? Maybe you should try a more aggressive pad and/or more abrasive compound or polish?

 

Looks great. The PC is one of the best investments for the car I have ever bought. I have a black Z and it worked wonders! Nice Job!

 

dawn is not fine to use. It drys out all the plastics on the car.. which of course could leads to cracking....eventually.

 

There are people on both sides of the fence on this. I remember that I had Clearcoat failure on my 94 honda accord because I didnt give a **** and used detergent soap. Dawn takes out all the moisture associated with the clearcoat/paint. After time, the clear coat fails and you'd need another paint job. There is no easy way to fix it.