How many pads for whole car?

[AK83]

I was saving up for performance parts but then after reading this "Keeping it Clean" section I decided to invest in detailing equipment since prior I was clueless about it and my last trip to the local hand wash I saw the guy drop the towel on the ground and continue using it to dry my car.

I bought a 7424XP and so far I followed Seer's thread and bought Chemical Guys wash, M105, M205, Blackfire Wet diamond, a couple LC Pads, two buckets with grit guards, and a bunch of microfiber and drying towels, all ending up slightly over $400.

My question is, I followed Seer's thread and purchased 3 of each Lake Country hydro pads (cyan, crimson, tangerine). But I'm wondering, is that enough pads to do the whole car? If it is then I'm happy because the pads alone were $90 total.

 

[Seer]

Pads are like 3 for $15 on detailer's club with membership

You will need about 3-4 pads to detail a normal sized car per polishing step.

So if you are doing a compound/finish, you would need 3-4 cyan and 3-4 crimson.

If you are doing a mild polish step you would need 3-4 tangerine in there as well. Most of the time on lighter colored cars you can just one step with a tangerine, on darker cars you would need to go m105/cyan then m205/crimson. Some people three step which is m105/cyan, m205/tangerine, then either m205/crimson or m205/menzerna po85rd (much finer polish than m205) to jewel.

 

[AK83]

Awesome, thanks Seer, it's a black car (that's never been detailed in 5 year) so I'm going to three step. Three for $15! I paid $10 each

 

[Seer]

Awesome, thanks Seer, it's a black car (that's never been detailed in 5 year) so I'm going to three step. Three for $15! I paid $10 each

Yep, membership was $25/yr last week, its back up to $50, which is still a steal because the discounts are huge.

With M105 and a cyan pad, I bet you will really only need 2 steps. For the sake of saving time, after you do a 2'x2' on your car with m105 and a cyan pad, switch to 205 and a crimson and see how it looks. I can almost bet it should be fine

Only real reason to do three step is to jewel the paint, in this case your 205 step would be with a tangerine pad, and you'd introduce a third polish menzerna po85rd with crimson.

 

[gothamite302]

Pads are like 3 for $15 on detailer's club with membership

You will need about 3-4 pads to detail a normal sized car per polishing step.

So if you are doing a compound/finish, you would need 3-4 cyan and 3-4 crimson.

If you are doing a mild polish step you would need 3-4 tangerine in there as well. Most of the time on lighter colored cars you can just one step with a tangerine, on darker cars you would need to go m105/cyan then m205/crimson. Some people three step which is m105/cyan, m205/tangerine, then either m205/crimson or m205/menzerna po85rd (much finer polish than m205) to jewel.

im starting this next week on my black focus. cant wait to see the results