• No matter how you’re polishing, you can overwork the polish in an area. The process of polishing is designed to heat up the paint, so it’s important not to spend too much time in one spot or you’ll fry the paint.
• Some people get a little overzealous and try to coat the entire vehicle with polish before spending any time working it into the paint. Don’t be that guy. The only thing that applying too much polish will accomplish is creating a big, dried up mess for you to clean up later.

• Avoid getting polish and other cleaning solutions on your skin. They can cause rashes or burns.
• If you’re using an electric rotary polisher, it’s essential to keep your hair, jewelry, clothing, pets, and anything else you care about away from the spinning disc. It’s not a saw, but it’ll tangle with loose materials such as hair in a hurry.
• Most car wash and car care products are safe for the environment, but it’s still a good idea not to carelessly dispose of any polishing byproducts.
• Working in a covered space can be great to help protect your new polish job and prevent premature drying, but don’t try working in an enclosed space where fumes can accumulate.

Before You Start

Before you start any kind of polishing you need to get your paint as clean as you possibly can, otherwise you will simply drag dirt around, scratching the clear coat and making even more swirls! Pre wash or snow foam should be used first – this is a non-contact step, ie you don’t physically touch the car, let the pre cleaners do their thing to lift dirt and contaminants away from the surface, then pressure wash. Check out our pre wash guide here.

Then you shampoo the car using the 2 bucket method and a soft microfiber. We have another guide to washing your car which you can check out here.

Lastly, we highly recommend using a clay bar to remove the stubborn contaminants from your paint. This is a highly satisfying process – you’ll be surprised by how much debris the clay lifts off your paintwork, especially if it’s the first time you car has been clayed – again, we have a specific guide about how to use a clay bar to get the best results.

Polishing your car

Polishing can be done by hand or by machine. Polishing your car by hand is potentially safer but will be a long and laborious task, especially if you have the whole car to do, but it can be done! If polishing by hand, tackle a small 30x30cm section at a time and then, once happy with the results, move on the the adjacent 30x30cm section. This will allow you to see the fruits of your labour, side by side with a section that hasn’t been polished which can be pretty satisfying.

The more efficient way to approach things is with a machine polisher. Due to the hard work and repetitive nature of hand polishing, using a machine polisher often yields better results, simply because people cut corners when polishing by hand because they get bored!

Using a machine polisher, together with the correct grade of polishing pad, and polish, you won’t be too long getting fantastic results. However caution is needed as it is much easier to do damage with a machine polisher than it is polishing by hand. We’ll have a separate guide on machine polishing techniques and safety in the coming weeks.

Once the surface is prepared (pre wash, wash, clayed) it’s time to inspect the paint and see what you need next. Bear in mind, you want to remove as little paint as possible.

So, let’s sort the polishing machine first. There are basically 2 types, a DA Polisher, (Dual Action) and a Rotary. The DA is for home detailers really, it’s safer, and it’s not as aggressive in action as the rotary, but it does take longer.  The rotary works faster, but can also strike through paint quicker, especially on edges. Currently we have Dodo Juice Buff Daddy DA Polishers and Spin Doctor Rotary Polishers in stock.

Next you’ll need polishing pads, these come in various sizes and various grades of abrasiveness. Depending on the condition of your paint you might start with the coarse polishing pad, and move to the fine polishing pads. Again, we have the Dodo Juice Range in stock.