I'm working on a friend's 1996 Saab convertible which had arguabley the worst swirling I had ever seen. Of course it's black. We did a test area on the hood to find the right combination and Menz 203 with a green uber pad did an amazing job at taking care of 95% of defects. All swirls were gone but some rids hung around. However, when I looked at the pad there was a lot of black residue on it. The test section didn't show any signs of damage to the finish. In fact it looked awesome. A huge transformation for the car. I thought these cars had clear on them. Is this single stage?
Yup, I have a 1996 Saab 900 and whilst everyone says it is clearcoated, I get a lot of paint transfer. This could be one of two things: single stage paint or heavily tinted clearcoat. I have called Saab and they have not given me a straight answer so it beats me. I have not seen the paint oxidise however so I am going to say that it is more than likely tinted clearcoat.
Yah that's exactly what it looks like. I'm inclined to think tinted clearcoat. There is a small spot on the hood that looks a little like the clearcoat issue that you posted in the detail of your friend's saab. Makes me definitely think that there is a clear. It really is amazing how well it cleans up though.
after polishing single stage paint, and you get paint transfer onto your pad, do you have to throw out your pad? or can it be cleaned and then used on another vehicle?
Just clean it up as you would normally. It is not different to working on any other clearcoated car in terms of removed clearcoat becoming imbedded in the pad, the only difference is that this clearcoat is tinted and therefore visible.
If you get the paint code off of the car, you can google the paint code and you may get some info that will tell you if it is a single stage or two stage paint. You could also enter the paint code into the "code" section on this website below and it should tell you what color you are working with and if it is single or two stage. Color Explorer Online
When I had a Black G35 Coupe, I would get black pads sometimes when polishing it. It's either tinted clear, or the oxidized paint comes to the surface and when you polish it out, the pad picks up the dead paint, which causes the pigment transfer. I'm inclined to believe it's the latter.
The only issue with that idea is that my car for instance is polished to perfection, yet there is never a time where a chemical paint cleanser or an abrasive product will not remove some pigment. I will grab the paint code and give it a wirl in that site though and see if it might shed any insight. We talked about this on AG a little while ago right?
