I've got the G100, Meguiar's M80 and practice using them on a car other than my own. Now comes time to use it on my own car (2006 MINI Cooper S). I've been reading more about people saying that sometime M80 leaves hazing or micro marring. I guess that happens on softer paints.

So would you consider the paint on a MINI to be hard, medium, soft ...?

 

Of the clearcoated factory paints I've dealt with, I'd put the MINI paint just on the hard side of "medium". Of course, that's just my experience.

Richard (OctaneGuy) probably has more experience with M80 than anyone else here, so hopefully he'll chime in, but it's my impression that M80 isn't necessarily designed to be the very last step before you apply your sealer/wax. With the right pad and the right kind of paint, I know that he sometimes goes straight from M80 to his sealer/wax, but I don't think you can always count on being able to do that.

 

From what I have seen and read, it would fall into the "medium" category

 

M80 is intended for the step before sealer. It is on OG's video.

I have used M80 on my BRG MCS and it worked like a dream.

 

That's what I got from his video as well, but from some of his writeups, I seem to remember him using something between M80 and the final sealant, depending on how the paint looked after the M80.

 

I think OG is just being careful. M80 is a very safe product which should not haze. The best thing to do is a test spot as recommended on the video.
My guess is that if it is original MINI paint you can use M80 and seal without a problem.

 

M80 will not haze as long as you use the right combination of pads on a PC. M83 is more aggresive and it may leave hazing so you have to follow-up with another pass of M80. I've only used M80 with white LC pads or W8006 Meguiars pad.

 

Ditto. Only way I could see M80 hazing is if you (a) used an overly aggressive pad like the DP/LC yellow pad or (b) possibly if you didn't work the M80 LONG ENOUGH in each spot - weird I know - but the abrasives actually get finer the longer you work it - so if it hazed a tiny amount in the first few passes off the pad, later passes (during the same application of M80 as you work that one spot) should polish out the haze it created earlier...

 

I think this is what happened to me. I resolved the issue by applying Meguire's Mirror Glaze #9 and the haze disappeared.

Next time, I'll work the M80 longer. Thanks for the tip.