I recently bought an inexpensive electric waxer/polisher, first time I've
used one. I am not impressed. Maybe I am doing something wrong -- or maybe
I just need a higher-quality one.
Followed the instructions and used it to apply the wax to half the car.
Worked sort of OK, but the unit threw a lot of wax on the ground, on me, on
everything. And of course it smeared wax on the black rubber body
mouldings, rubber door/window seals, and other places where I didn't realy
want any wax. I ended up applying the other half of the car by hand, the
old way.
Then I changed bonnets and used the polisher to remove & buff the wax --
well, kind of. It didn't work very well. It didn't really remove all the
wax, it left a dull film of wax on the car -- which I ended up polishing off
by hand, to get a shine. It got worse as I went along, the bonnet got
prettty gooey with built-up wax residue. The thing came with only one
polishing bonnet, so I couldn't change to a clean bonnet.
After a while I gave up totally and buffed the rest of the car by hand.
When I went to buff the areas where I used the polisher to apply the wax, it
was VERY difficult to get the wax off -- like maybe there was too much wax
on the car in those areas.
All in all, I would have saved time by doing the whole car by hand, the
old-fashioned way. But I thought any cool tool guy worth his salt, used one
of these polishers. What am I missing?
1) Need a better quality unit? This one sort of bounces up & down while it
rotates/oscillates -- it doesn't really ride smoothly on the surface. Maybe
a better one would have smoother action and polish better?
2) Maybe I used too much wax? But I tried using less, and the surface
appeared too dry -- I was worried about scratching the finish with too
little wax.
3) Maybe I just need better quality bonnets? Or more of them? How many
buffing bonnets does it typically take to do an average car (medium-size
sedan)?
4) Maybe I need a different wax? I used regular Mequiar's wax/cleaner.
Works fine when I apply it by hand & buff by hand. Maybe it's not the right
stuff for use with an electric polisher.
5) Maybe I tried to do too much of the car with the polisher -- maybe it's
only good for big, flat panels and you have to do the rest by hand anyway.
But if that's the case, it would only work for about 50% of the car's
surface. Not worth unwinding the extension cord for that.
Any advice appreciated from experienced people. Please don't give me the
generic "cheap tools aren't good/good tools aren't cheap" lecture, we all
know that, if you can be more specific that would help.
Mark
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