I'm getting more and more into detailing my car, and I'm learning new things / hearing different tactics everyday. My car is pretty mint, however I am OCD especially with black and it needs that mirror reflection. I have very minor swirl marks on various parts of my car; mainly the hood. After a thorough cleaning, should I work at these marks with a polisher or should I clay bar them? Lets say I were to use a polisher, can I do this by hand in the same process that I would use to wax? (Simply rubbing it in, then buffing / wiping it off). Also if I were to polish by hand in long horizontal or vertical lines, should I be applying any pressure? I understand that clay baring and/ or polishing is the prerequisite to waxing, so I want to make sure im doing it right. Thanks for the help, I hope to update this thread in the future with pics after the process.

This is the car when I got it:




This is it very recently, I hate to say at the moment its raped by pollen and sap so it WILL need this extensive cleaning:

 

i usually claybar before polish or anything. i also find that polishing by hand does not yield the same results when using a power buffer. some of the black car guys will probably chime in with what polish works best, but i would invest in an orbital buffer, you won't be disappointed.

 

i run a detail shop, so i see this everyday. with our high cut wool pads, (for removing heavy oxidation or scratches, swirl marks are inevetiable, esp on a black car. i have found that after buffing, using a yellow foam pad or cut equivelent depending on brand, with Meguires Hi-tec yellow wax and lightly buffing it with that, will remove most swirl marks. dont apply too much pressure, or you will just make them worse.

 

for light swirls, i use a white pad with tropicare swirl cutter. ive found that you have to apply almost NO pressure at all. even a few pounds will only slow down the rotations on the PC, and it wont do its job.

if you claim you have OCD about it, then you have to realize; the only way to keep a black car 100% perfect is to detail it, cover it, and leave it in a garage forever. i have one, its simply impossible to keep it perfect. every single tiny scratch, mark, nick, swirl will show up. the best you can do is just keep up on it once in a while. otherwise youll be spending more time detailing then driving it.

 

Invest in a porter cable and some sort of 2 step polish. Also, zaino, although not as deep as a shine as some waxs will protect much better. autogeek.net has some great info.

93,000 mile daily driver.