Yup, what Richard said

If you take out the polish, it sort of goes like this from most to least aggressive.

Yellow
Orange
White
Black

You can never own enough white pads, IMO, as I find them to be used the most.

Mark

 

a polish question...probably for Heather or octaneGuy:


my chili red '04 has just minimal swirls from the winter and I was just about ready to PC it and I am low on polish. What I have been doing is, after claying:

Zaino Z-PC polish with lake country white pad
Zaino all -in-One with lake country black pad
zaino Z5 and/or depending, Zaino Z2
Hydro later as needed, monthly


I am about out of the Z-PC polish but I have enough of the Z2 and Z5 sealant and the Z-AIO,......I want to try Swirl...is this compatable with the Z-AIO and Z2/5...and if so, can I still use my lake country pad, which color? or do I need to buy a prima pad too?

thanks

 

Yep! That will do fine. The Prima pads are the same LC pads. White is the most common and general purpose pad but an Orange Pad will give you a bit more flexibility in dealing with harder to remove defects.

I've polished out MINIs before using Swirl and finishing with Zaino at the customers request and the results are excellent.

Richard

 

is Z2 ok to use directly over Amigo or should one wash the car in between with dawn? or mystique? or wipe with the Zaino Z6 detailing sparay

 

I don't know if something else is better, but wow am I impressed with Amigo then Epic. My 06 has very, very good paint (CR) very little spyderwebs. So I just did a good wash, clay, hand applied Amigo, and hand applied Epic. I had no idea that the car could get any more red. Several friends have just commented on how much redder my car is compared to what it was, and it was very red before. I am very happy.

YD

 

You know this requires pics don't you

 

YD, was the Amigo relatively easy to apply by hand? I found the Epic nice to deal with, but I must say the Banana Gloss is even easier

 

We've used Z2 directly over Amigo with no problems. No need for an intermediary step.

Have fun!

-Heather

PS- Did you also get my PM about this?

 

That's great to hear! Indeed, Amigo + Epic creates quite a dramatic effect on Chili Red, not to mention any of the darker colors in particular.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the combo.

-Heather

 

Rixter, yes the Amigo was super easy. It is thicker than Epic, but I just used a small cloth covered pad and put it on in overlapping circles. It hazed over, I buffed it off by hand with microfiber and that is all. I then put one coat of Epic on and let it haze an hour of so and then micro-ed it off. Very slick and did I mention "RED".

Oh yea, I first put on a thick coat of Black WOW on the wheel arches and all black plastic. I just let the BW sit there throughout the entire process. Any Amigo or Epic that I accidentally got on the arches just wiped off, no white residue. In the end, I wiped off the XS BW.

YD

 

I just finished 2 days ago using Swirl then Amigo for the first time and then applied Zaino Z5 over that with no compatability problems....looks GREAT.....will top that with Zaino Z2 in a couple days....note: I wiped the Amigo with Z6 spray prior to putting on the Z5 but not sure if I needed to but did it anyway

About Swirl...easy to use...and more cost effective than what I had used previously which was Zaino's version called Z-PC....the zaino z-pc was an 8 oz bottle vs Swirl 16 0z and they are roughy the same price....as to which worked better? both were great although my car was not a good test case as any swirling was minmal to begin with

one other note: do not wear a white T-shirt when applying Amigo by a PC....got all black speckles( washed out ok tho)

Does Amigo provide any protection on its own? I know Epic is what gives longer protection( like Z2 does) but once you have polished off any protective sealant with Swirl and then Amigo over that, is the car unprotected until Epic is applied or is Amigo giving some protection on its own allowing you to wait a week or two until opportunity arrives for applying Epic so you can do all this in 2 stages if you are running out of time?

 

Umberto, I do believe that the Amigo has some protection as a glaze but not much. I tried a new strategy this go round adopted from Lotsie. I did all three steps one panel at a time. I washed, clayed, Swirled, Amigo'd, then Epic'd. Did one door then the other then the rear quarters then etc.

 

Not sure why you'd wait a week or two to apply Epic anyway. Not like it takes hours. 15 minutes to put it on. 15 minutes to take it off.

You've just spent hours washing, claying, and polishing. Another half an hour plus the wait time to allow it to dry is nothing.

 

Great to hear the project turned out well for you!

As for Amigo's protection, as others have also said, Amigo does provide a small amount of protection- at least a few weeks if not more. So, if you need to wait before applying Epic or other durable wax, Amigo will tie you over. Afterall, what are friends for??

-Heather

 

I'm quite surprised to read this, you told me that your testing wasn't conclusive and Nick even mentioned that there was no evidence of the Zaino being still there after wiping it off when layered on top of Amigo.

 

Hmmm... and I'm surprised to read your post too! There must have been some confusion in either what we thought you were asking or in how we answered. Sorry for the confusion! Nick has personally tried Zaino over Amigo and hasn't had any problems with compatibility, such as smearing or cloudiness (which might indicate bonding issues between the two products).

What Nick was probably talking about in terms of Zaino's presence is that there simply isn't a concrete method to tell if the Zaino layer, in particular, is still on the paint (but there is no reason why it wouldn't be, given there is no indication of compatibility issues).

Amigo will cause beading just as much as Zaino and both increase shine. So how can one 100% tell which one is seen on the paint? Although the shine is different between the two and thus one can visually guess as to whether there is Zaino on the paint, there simply is no immediate physical test to determine whether it is there. That is what he was talking about by saying that there was no evidence of Zaino being there... he wasn't saying it wasn't there, but rather that he honestly has no way of definitively proving it was still there.

That said, there is no reason why the Zaino wouldn't be there! He just wasn't going to lie to you and tell you that he could guarantee it was there. A situation of semantics and scientific proof.

Does that make more sense? Or as clear as mud? Let me know if that didn't help and I'll try to explain it differently. Sorry again for the confusion!

-Heather

 

CR PW JB.....actually, I had the whole day free to do the entire wash/clay/polishes/sealant layers(zaino) but after the amigo step I got a call that I had to go into work to cover for sick collegue. I wasn't sure how much protection the amigo gave, so the next morning, very early, I washed/dried/ applied just one layer of Zaino Z5 and went to work...... will finish it up in the next week or so with 2 coats of Z2


car looked great for one day but is now coated with pollen

 

Ahhh, OK THAT's what you meant. なるほど！(translation : I see!)

Anyway, I'm happy with the result I got with Amigo+Epic but now I'm curious to see what Amigo+Zaino would have looked like since I had a bunch of Zaino left at the time
I guess for that now I am going to have to wait for Umberto's pictures

 

hey all, been reading the post and trying to figure out what i should do, i belive my CR mini looks great, anyone who sees it does too, i wash it once a week and take very good care of it, but unfortunatly i belive i have a water spotting issue, maybe some light swirl marks and hopefully no etching, when the light hits it right the hood of my car looks like the surface of the moon, and so does the roof,

now i've heard of and lightly tried the white vinigar solution but no luck and im starting to belive that a light polish may be my route, although ive never done any polishing before (first car, one year old)

i do not have a Random orbatal or Dual action or any machine for polishing, all my work is done by hand, i've been using the Mr clean thing for a while and i enjoyed the results, would clay every so often, and then after the wash finish it with Eagle one nano wax. but recently tried the meguires cleaner wax that came with the clay bar kit and i liked the results much Much better than the nano wax, so now im starting to step up my detailing game.

can someone please explain how the polish works and what it actually does to the paint surface, is it that the abrasive actually "sands" down the clear coat? taking off the top layer? can i cause more damage with a polish? what caual brands i can get, i was leaning towards the meguires stuff and i saw in this post that the scratch X works for the clear bra on the front, i think i saw that the deep crystal system paint cleaner wasnt too abraisve? im not sure, and if this is my only course of action to get my mini's paint back to show car status.
i'll try to get some photos
-thanks