White Wax marred my paint

[Shawn T.]

So I went to do my dads car with white wax today and it marred the paint considerably.

I applied it with a G110v2 on a W8207 polishing pad on speed 5. My dads car is a black Honda Pilot.

[Shawn T.]

Forgot my question....anyone else experience this?

[Meticulous-Detail]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

Black Honda Pilot has soft paint. I have experienced marring with this paint and you do need to refine the paint after a compound or polish. I would switch to a finishing pad and knock down the speed to 3.5 or 4. Question why not use black wax on the black Honda instead of white wax?

[ClearlyCoated]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

I haven't experienced it personally, but I am planning to use the black wax on my car soon. I've recently learned that the white wax has a greater concentration of paint cleaner in it, while the black wax has more greater polish load. In the case of your super soft black Honda paint, the white wax might have been a little bit too much for it. If the marring resulted from the mild paint cleaner in the white wax, it shouldn't be hard to correct.

Clay to remove the white wax and if you have some M80 or M205, try running that over your paint with a finishing pad. Once you've lifted the marring, apply the black wax to deepen the color and restore the gloss.

[Shawn T.]

Thanks for the comments.

I can get white wax locally and I had to order black wax from AutoGeek. It will be here on Monday.

Plus this car really needed some cleaning so I wanted the extra cleaning power of white wax.

I used 205 on the spots where it was marred and then just sealed the paint with ULW from there.

I've used UC on this paint before without too much problem so I don't see why white wax hazed so badly.

[Detailing by M]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

I wouldn't say it was the WW per say. I'm leaning more toward technique, arm speed, finishing speed, etc.
Can you post some pics so we can see exactly what your talking about?

[Show 'N' Shine Car Detailing]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

Maybe speed of 5 was too much for the soft paint?? I used the WW on speed 4 on a white Cadillac just today and it worked great. Unless I'm actually compounding I'll use 4-1/2-5 with moderate to heavy pressure at times, but that's with an actual compound like UC or M105, etc.. Now the caddy paint surely wasn't a soft paint though. I didn't get too aggressive on the DA though, maybe moderate pressure then lighten it up the last few passes, but also this caddy paint was in good shape. I didn't see one swirl mark in it.

This is one reason I got a hood to practice my techniques on. I'd like to grab various manufacturer hoods to test on. Anywho, not trying to take away from your WW issue.

[Shawn T.]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

I tried it on 4 as well and it reduced the marring a little but it was still marring.

I'm just wondering how aggressive this stuff really is because a cleaner/wax very rarely mars paint.

[Murr1525]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

Its not weak...

[Detailing by M]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

Slow speed with more pressure cuts deeper and faster speed with less pressure creates shine.
So maybe faster and lighter pressure will fix it?

[Michael Stoops]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

If the paint is truly as soft as some here are suggesting then odds are the marring you're experiencing is more a function of the pad than the wax. For the same reason we don't recommend using the W7207 burgundy cutting pad on a DA, the W8207 may be marring the paint on this Honda. The orbital action of the DA can frequently leave what's known as a "DA haze" on many finishes, depending on the product and pad chosen. Because of the very high probability of this haze happening with the W7207 pad on the majority of paints, we don't recommend using it on the DA. But take a very soft paint, one that's prone to DA haze to begin with, and even a less aggressive pad can cause marring.

One of our Thursday Night Open Garage regulars has a non metallic black Toyota Prius with ridiculously soft paint. Our consumer clay creates all kinds of marring on it, and Ultimate Compound on a yellow pad, while easily removing defects, leaves the paint looking more gray than black. A close inspection shows a ton of micro marring from that combo on that paint. We usually finish on that car with a cleaner wax (ColorX or M06) on a W9207 black finishing pad and it comes out looking fantastic.

Very soft paint can be a huge challenge to work on because of its propensity for marring. Personally, the worst situation I've ever seen was a 1981 Ferrari 512BB with original single stage black paint. Even M07 Show Car Glaze, applied by hand with a foam applicator, would haze the finish. That car, gorgeous as it is, was just a total pain to work on. Sometimes in this game you need to do some juggling, product/pad mixing and matching, etc until you hit on a combo that finally gives the result you're after.

Of course, technique comes into play as well. Where the vast majority of cars generally respond well to a given pad/product/tool speed/pressure combo, every now and then something comes along that either laughs in the face of that mix, or it comes out looking almost worse than when you started!

[Shawn T.]

Thanks for all of the responses.

Black Wax also marred my Honda Civic's Paint.

I'll try it by hand or with a finishing pad but I am so far unimpressed with these 2 new cleaner/waxes.

[Detailing by M]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

wax marring?
That's a new one.
I highly doubt it's the wax'es fault, check your pads, pressure, ect.

[Shawn T.]

Re: White Wax marred my paint

wax marring?
That's a new one.
I highly doubt it's the wax'es fault, check your pads, pressure, ect.

Hey I can only hope its my technique but I was using speed 4 with light pressure on a green light polishing LC pad. Some fo the green LC pads were once labeled as heavy polishing but the green pads are now softer than the white polishing pads.

I'll give it another shot but we'll see.

[Detailing by M]

Use Meguiars soft buff yellow pad.
I've been using White Wax &Black Wax since they came out and never had a problem with them. They arewonderful wonderful products but then again I use Meguiar's pad exclusively.
I don't mix products. I trust Meguiar's knows what pad to use their products.