This popular DA polisher has been cheaper in the past but if you have ebayplus, you can use your $5 monthly credit towards it and pay $85.99 store pickup. Postage is $7.
Other discount options are discounted ebay giftcards or SuperCheap Auto giftcards.
Link to Supercheap
I've just bought one and if anyone can recommend a polishing pad set, that would be awesome.
Cheers. I was looking at that exact set.
Can you also recommend some Cutting, Polishing and Waxing products please? I'm thinking about polishing my own car and need some encouragement and tools.
The best way is just to search OzBargain for the main brands, then read the comments in the deals.
While i've always enjoyed detailing my car, I just got a new (10 year old) car and its dark metallic blue which every imperfections so decided to make it look as close to new on a reasonable DIYer budget and put a lot of time trying to find a decent set of products at ok price point. For most I just waited to the supercheap "storewide sale" and got some 10% discounted gift cards. I'd note I am not a pro and, brand agnostic, and wanted to get mainly easy to acquire products so I'm sure there are other opinions and suggestions but this works for me. If I was to do it again I could have ordered a few more of them through carcarproducts as they were the last place I looked when I struggled to find decent pads and would have been happy trying some of the gyeon products.
Interior (All Chemical Guys. The dilution factor makes these awesome value and all the reviews are very positive. Only issue is they have so many things that seem like they do a similar thing the one to pick was hard)
- Deep Clean Fabric - Chemical guys lightning fast. can be diluted to 20:1
- Deep Clean Everything else interior Chemical guys nonsense can be diluted to 20:1. Also works on carpets / fabric but I felt the lighting would be slightly better and be suited for other purposes I have around the house
- Maintenance clean and UV protectant Chemical guys Total Interior. Works on pretty much everything inside the car but is for ongoing use rather than deep clean.
Exterior (products listed in order of use)
- AD Polisher - the one in this post
- Pads - ordered variety 6 inch "mist" brand from carcareproducts.com.au. They are $13 each and much better quality that the SCA ones. Didn't get the amazon pack above as didn't need that full spectrum
- drying towel - The Rag Company - The Gauntlet Drying Towel. I thought my old chamois did a good job but nothing compared to this.
- Clean - Any cheap wash will do so long as it doesn't have included wax / sealant. the whole process is to strip that and apply fresh
- Decontaminate & claybar - Bowdens Three Way & a clay towel I had prior. The three way is good as it is a decontaminate, claybar lube and wax remover so preps the next stages in less steps. I much prefer clay towel as so much quicker.
- compound - meguiars ultimate compound. as yo uapply it it transitions to a less abrasive product so reduces steps
- polish - meguiars ultimate polish
- cleanser - isopropyl alcohol. removes any remaining compound / polish so bare clearcoat
- ceramic spray - turtle wax hybrid solutions ceramic spray coating. I've used this for a couple of years and so easy to apply and provides awesome protection. My neighbour tried it on half his bonnet 2 years ago and you can still see the 2 sides on his bonnet clearly.
Man you are amazing! I'll come back to all of this once I get the tools and ready to get started. Appreciate you taking the time.
Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and Ultimate Polish is a good starter kit for cutting and polishing. These days sealants are leaps and bounds beyond waxing. Waxing only gives paint protection and hydrophobic water beading for a few weeks rather than sealants which can last months if applied properly.
Don't forget to pick up a clay bar to remove all contaminents before polishing. No need for any kind specialised clay detailing spray, just keep the clay and the work surface always wet with soapy water.
Postage was free on ebay for me
I chose my local store for pickup but then my order shows delivery to my address and there was no additional delivery charges. So I don't know what's going to happen to my order :D
I have this polisher. It works well with good pads. I used chemical guys, but might try the SPTA set recommended by Nom.
is paint correction worth trying myself or should i just pay the grand the detailer wants?
It's really easy with a DA polisher, and you would struggle to do any damage.
It is a lot of work though, especially when you include the necessary decontamination beforehand (which also requires additional tools and chems).
I redid my little hatchback last weekend and ceramic coated it. The whole process took me probably 15 hours across the weekend, and I'm still not fully happy with it 😅
Can you do my little Ford Focus XR5? Please? It's red and needs lots of TLC. :(
I thought I was slow taking 17 hours including 2 coats of ceramic coating. But yes absolutely it takes forever to wash, clay, wash, dry, mask, compound, polish, dewax, ceramic coat. Worse is after ceramic coating you find high spots…
That was what I found hard, after all that prep, keeping enough motivation to get the ceramic coating on properly.
Never again.
I legit wouldn't do it again for $10,000 (probably would)
@pauly85: Haha come one man. I might pick this up and play around with it, see how badly I'll mess up the paint. Yolo
What's a high spot?
@lordra: https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/how-to-articles/118107-…
Lighting becomes important when applying and inspecting a ceramic coating - it is hard to see unless you have bright and broad daylight (hence you see some car detailing shops with a "light tunnel" where any defects can be spotted easily, just like when a new car was undergoing QC from the factory). I didn't have that luxury so only found the high spot after a few days under broad sunlight.
But what the guy said in the post is indeed important - go slow and do one panel at a time before moving on. Also I think "prosumer" grade products tend to have lower concentration so it has more tolerance for the DIYers.
A grand for paint correction?
You should be able to find places that do it for a few hundred.
Paint correction yourself is going to take a really long time and you're going to spend a hundred or two on equipment.
Might as well just pay someone else to do it tbh
Yes, by all means. There's a bit of labour involved to go through all the steps in the process by your self properly before sealing the surface. So it makes sense why detailers charge that much. But if you have the time and a bit of know-how it's worth it.
I cant find in the description if this is 'Random Orbital" as it only mentions Orbital type polishing action.
Would be good to know for sure.
Dual action = random orbital.
There are also gear-driven dual action (Rupes Mille for example) that makes the orbital action "non-random".
https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/rockwell-shopseries-rock…
This is my second unit after you have to bang it to work like an old CRT TV. Only used it twice in 2 years.
Luckily is was a tad less than 2 years otherwise cannot claim.
Not sure if that one is better
Folks, how much money you are spending to proper detail your car? I would Ike to ceramic coat mine, but I need to remove a lot of scratches & probably repaint 8cm2 marks beforehand. Got plenty of time but can't really estimate total cost. I got no detail tools.
Can this be used to polish up the missus' attitude?
Asking for a friend, thanks.
If that doesn't go well, you could always use it to polish your knob!
If I was to follow BO's Chart at what stage would I use this DA?
Can I use it in conjunction with Nom's link to do other jobs as well, for the car/motorbike?
After 6, instead of 7.
Going off that BO chart it would be after step 6 but in general the paint needs to as clean as possible and free of contamination before using a machine polish. Which means no waxes or sealants on the paint (if there is any use a wash that will remove these things)
If there is anything the machine catches you risk scratching your paint and making it worse than it was before (if not cleaned properly before using the machine)
Is the cordless polisher from toolpro one any good?
I have 3 worx batteries that can work with that
Thanks
Is it a dual action one?
Looking at video, it's not. Only use dual action on your car
I've still got one these in its original box from an ozbargain dealio 6 years ago.
I'm sure it will come in use one day…
Username checks out. You probably can't reach it. 😉
Is there any good cordless polisher recommendation? Thanks
Serious question, can this be used to clean other surfaces besides cars? Such as my marble dinner table or my kitchen counter tops? Sometimes it's difficult to clean the dinner table with my wrist injury as I can't apply a lot of pressure, and there's always some food particles that I can't see left on the table, I feel it if I run my nails across the table, then I can feel stuff still on the table. But if I could use this with a microfibre cloth and some surface cleaner it would be perfect. Any one know?
Shower screens. Remove the build up and ceramic coat the screen.
Water will run down like a waterfall.
Does anyone know how this model rates in terms of loudness and vibration?
Let me check lovehoney (joke) 🤣
This or the Rockwell for $105($100 eBay)?
link
What does $10 buy you?
Will the pads nom listed worked with the Rockwell?
I have the Rockwell. This is why I asked about the vibration/noise. The Rockwell wears you out because of this and whilst it can get the job done it makes the job less enjoyable and more taxing. Oh and it also comes with a large backing plate and single pad, which are too large for the weak motor to run at the speeds you need to be effective. I purchased a Lake Country 5.5" backing plate and pads from them as well on recommendation from the ozbargain thread at the time. But that was 3 years ago and it was almost impossible to source that smaller backing plate back then. So not sure how you'll go now.
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B017GAGHMQ/ 👌
Note the grade of the pad colours is wrong in the picture - it references colours that aren't even in the pack you'll receive 😂 - use the grades listed in the main description text !