Car polishing is good or bad? Long term review

[amid]

I have got the car polishing done 2 years back and started seeing the formation of mild white patches in my grey color car. Although it's not very obvious at the moment, but anyone can spot once too close to the vehicle. My doubt is, will it get worst with time.....? Is it because of car poloshing....? Is because of bad car polishing workmanship or products....?

[Barry]

Can you post a picture of it so we can see?

Too much polishing isn't good for a car. Every time you polish, you're effectively removing a small layer of paint. A new layer of clean paint is exposed and this is where the shine comes from. Any detailer worth his salt will check the entire car with an ultrasonic paint depth gauge like the one below before he even plugs the buffing machine in. Some parts of the paint may be thinner than others and require a lighter touch when polishing. The other picture I have posted is typical of where the polishing has been so severe that the paint has been burnt through.

It's more important to use a high quality carnuba wax to protect the existing paint layer than it is to polish it every day. When I started driving I was very proud of my first car and polished it 2-3 times a week. The car always had a mirror finish and you could see your reflection in the paint but it wasn't long before patches of grey primer started showing through the white and eventually I had to repaint the entire car. It was a hard learning curve but then again I'm a mechanic/electrician, not a detailer.

Something else I would recommend is to use the two bucket method when you're washing your car. Keep your soap and water in one bucket and have another bucket with just plain cold water in it. Every time you dip the sponge the the soapy water and wipe your car, dip the sponge in the bucket of plain water before you dip it back into the bucket of soapy water. This way your sponge and soapy water is always clean, you're not rubbing dirty water and sand round your paint every time causing lots of fine micro scratches.

[ameen]

White patches may occur in case car is too old and always parked under the sun. Over the long term sun eats all the paint and that's why car company applies several quotes to keep car shinning as long as possible.

[teajay]

I had a scratch on my 1983 Mercedes the other day that i've done while trying to park my car, used thee polish specifically to that area just to remove the scratch, I think using Polish for the whole car isn't a good suggestion, as it definitely help on removing the paint..

[mankool]

'Technician' has said it all. It is highly likely that the person polishing your car didn't check the paint thickness and he went through your clear coat and/or the paint. Sunlight, specifically UV rays, is another strong reason why the clear coat may fail. The main point that I want to get across is that polishing a car itself is not a bad thing, as long as you do it right. By that, I mean you have the right tools/gauge to assess how much clear coat you are removing and in case of single coat cars, how much of the actual paint that you are shaving off. Secondly, you can significantly delay the appearance of scratches on your car by washing your car using the right methods, one of them being the two bucket method as suggested by 'Technician'. And one should really limit 'paint correction' jobs to once a year in order to avoid losing too much clear coat/paint.

You didn't mention which make of car you have? Usually the Japanese makes suffer from this problem as they have very soft paint.