Hi all
First up, I'd like to say that I don't own a Mustang (although they are my all time favourite American car) but I've gleaned so much information from this thread (particularly from rocket - the polishing guru) that I felt I had to contribute back a bit.
Based on rocket's assessment, I bought one of the ZFE Dual Action polisher kits on eBay. The best thing is that they now have a local eBay store (based in Kogarah, Queeensland) so there is hope for local support and the shipping charges are lower than if bought over Alibaba (
http://stores.ebay.com.au/ZFE-STORES-AU?_rdc=1).
I began my paint correction experience today (well, I did use a big rotary polisher years ago to tidy up a previous car but that was a decade ago) with the ZFE polisher, the flat orange pads and Chemical Guys V32 polish (similar in cutting power to Menzerna FG500, I believe) on my friend's red XF panel van. The paint on the roof and bonnet had gone all chalky so after cleaning the car, I clayed the bonnet to get rid of years of paint and other gunk from building sites and then I polished half the bonnet while he used a cutting wax on the other side. After working out that I wasn't going to damage the paintwork, I sped up the polisher and put some pressure on and it cleaned up surprisingly well. I ended up polishing half the panel van and used a wool pad to buff out the cutting wax used on the other half. My friend was very sceptical about how much difference (if any) the polishing would make but the difference vs the cutting wax was staggering, especially in sunlight.
With that under my belt, I polished the bonnet on my car (after a full clean and then IPA wipedown of the bonnet) which was annoying me due to some scratches and swirls. I used the V32 using the wavy orange pad (since I'd used up the flat ones) and finished it off with Chemical Guys V36 (similar to Menzerna PF2500) on a wavy black pad. The paint on my car (a VW Polo) has a very hard clearcoat so I had to be quite aggressive with the V32 but it did the job on the scratches/swirls and the V36 left it looking like a wavy mirror (with factory orange peel that would need sanding to remove
).
Anyway, I thought my experience + the eBay store would be useful to some of you
Greg