A guy I went to college with runs a professional detailing service. It's been since August of 07 since I got out there with the orbital buffer and did a claybar, 3 stage polish and wax so this has been looong over due and wanted to have it done right with better stuff this time.
He lives in auburn but is moving to huntsville at the end of the month so I wanted to get it done before he was harder to get a hold of.
He used the porter cable random orbital buffer (mine is the griot's garage random orbital) with the new foam pads that have the little pits in them to hold the polish better so it spreads more evenly. He hit it with the
Pinnacle Clay and meguiars speed shine first then he used a meguiars professional series buffing compound and then went over it with
Wolfgang's Füzion Estate Wax. The shine the paint has is absolutely unreal... and even MORE so considering the paint is probably 11 years old at this point.
There is still a little bit of orange peel effect in the paint (not NEARLY as much as there was) but he said that at the age the paint is, he doesn't want to risk burning through the paint with too aggressive of a polishing compound to get it totally mirror smooth.
He also passed along some car wash tips. Always wash the mitt after each wash. Only wash one section at a time and start with the roof. After you wash the roof, thorougly rinse the mitt and do another section. Washing the mit between each section removes as much of the dirt particles as possible and by doing so, greatly reduces the amount of potential scratching the mitt will do during washing.
He also recommneds using the california drying blade. I was using one of the absorbers and he said it picks up stray dirt particles that may be left in the water beads and can scratch and swirl the coat. The silicone blade doesn't do this and is more effecient at drying.
Also he said to pull the car into the garage to dry it to minimize water spots. (in other words, only keep it in the sun as long as absolutely necessary when washing) He also recommended that if I have time, after each wash to hit it with any decent between wash polish to clean up any final areas that dirt may be left behind.
All in all, I'm very pleased and have already gotten a few compliments from the neighbors. He charged $80 to do it so it was pretty reasonable compared to what some of the other guys in town charge. This is probably the cleanest the car has ever been and will ever be but he said if I wash with better practices and care, the shine should last easily a year or longer. I already ordered a couple of new microfiber meguiars wash mitts and a california water blade from autogeek.