How long should a buffing pad last?

[Buellwinkle]

I'm curious but how many cars/hours have people been getting out of the DA buffing pads and what's normal. My curiosity is because I want to buff all 4 my cars and six months later I want to do them over again, should I get a new pad, will the old ones still work? I use seperate pads for polish and wax.

Also, is there a life to pads in terms of time? Will the foam get hard and affect polishing after a while?

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Buellwinkle
I'm curious but how many cars/hours have people been getting out of the DA buffing pads and what's normal. My curiosity is because I want to buff all 4 my cars and six months later I want to do them over again, should I get a new pad, will the old ones still work? I use separate pads for polish and wax.

Also, is there a life to pads in terms of time? Will the foam get hard and affect polishing after a while?

Hi Buellwinkle,

It's kind of relative to the usage of the pad. For normal wear and tear you can use the pads until they physically look tatty and your common sense tells you not to use them on your car's finish. When pads do become tatty and worn, you can always delegate them to more grungy work. For example, where you might not use a tatty pad on a fine finish in excellent condition because the surface of the pad has some wear, it could be perfectly fine for removing oxidation off an old truck that you wouldn't want to use your best pad or a new pad on.

After buffing all four of your cars, clean your pads as best as you can and then let them air dry and then store them in a clean storage place. When you're ready to polish your cars again, inspect your pads and any that don't physically look good, replace with new ones.

I've owned pads for years and years that I've used and then stored, and I've never noticed any degradation over time, only from wear and tear and this is usually from use on a rotary buffer, not from use on a dual action polisher.

Mike