This is how you know its time
 

Don't pay a professional detailer hundreds of dollars, buy yourself a D/A, 3 different buffing pads, cutting and polishing compound and do it yourself. When your garage lights and surroundings look like a mirror in your paint, you know you've made it. Yes there is a learning curve and i learned the basics years ago from my cousin who professionally detailed for many years, but anyone can learn to buff and polish.

Very good job. I highly recommend also diving into graphene coatings. For 5 years I used a myriad of waxes. Carnauba, "ceramic", and graphene. Until I finally decided to watch a few videos from Adams Polishes and got their Graphene coating. Process is fairly simple.

Wash, dry, clay bar, polish, apply coating. What gets you is the initial buff and then the final polish. But the results are amazing and washing the car or even maintaining the coating is super simple.

The paint on our cars is pretty simple to correct which is nice. Really only need a mild cutting polish and a good pad and you'll get good cut and excellent finish. I'd easily recommend people give it a try so long as they're fine prepping paint properly first!

DIY gold standard polish and Carpro Essence is all I really use these days. essence is perfect primer for Cquartz UK. Still one of my favorite coatings to work with, and extremely easy to apply.

Pictures from essence polish which is a gloss enhancement to give that little extra at the end.

Got this at Ollies for 55% off, i think they still have some. Real good stuff, beads water and shines like no one's business. Yes clay barring is a must.

Thing i hate though with paint and clear over the recent years is it never seems to ever fully cure and get hard. Even after buffing and polishing mine there always seems to be the finest hairlines still in the clear, i can only see them at night and under bright light. I guess i gotta stop looking for them. Haha. Also retired body/paint guys i know and others have told me that painting has become a lost art and with the Epa over regulating its making modern paint low quality. I have to agree with them. There are countless cars i see out there that are 5-10 yrs old and the clear is peeling off in sheets already and then the base coat literally evaporates off once the clear is gone.

It is unfortunate Modern paints have become softer and thinner over the years, they are easier to correct but sometimes hard to finish properly. Modern GM black is some of the worst I've had to deal with. I pretty much exclusively use a foam waffle pad as it keeps pad cooler and finishes nicely.

As sidenote these cars usually measure around 120-140 microns total paint. I've seen new cars off the dealer lot with as low as 80 microns which is nothing.

Not sure how often you decontaminate with clay, but synthetic perforated clay towels are great alternative as they are alot less abrasive than traditional clay. A few companies offer them like the rag company. I only use those to prep cars or do regular decontamination unless absolutely necessary.

Yes waffle pads are awesome, i have several types in my arsenal and also basic pads as well. Modern Gm white is awful too, i see many where the white is peeling off in sheets. 80 microns? Whats that, one quickly sprayed coat? Lol, i'm hearing 6 figure luxury car owners taking theirs back under warranty for correction and saying to the dealer/manufacturer this paint is trash for what i paid for the car.

In the 10 yrs i've had mine i have probably clayed it 5 times, and have also since then always kept a heavy coat of wax or ceramic on it. I like ceramic because of the stacking ability. I used regular bars for yrs until i found the synthetic foam clay bar

I just "Simonize" my machine once a year, using the same can I've had for 40 years.

Yep, put it on with an old kitchen dish cloth (found under the sink) and wipe it off with an old baby diaper.

:iono: