The pad and the liquid are one system. The same compound on a cutting pad and on a finishing pad are, for practical purposes, two different products — often two whole grades apart. This page is the reference we use ourselves.
Colour coding is not a standard
There is no industry agreement on pad colour. A yellow Lake Country CCS pad and a yellow Buff and Shine Uro-Tec pad are not the same cut, and within Lake Country alone, yellow means different things in CCS, HDO and Force.
Read the cut level, not the colour. Every pad on this site states it on the product page. If a retailer only tells you the colour, they are not telling you anything.
The four combinations that cover most work
Start here, test on one 45 × 45 cm section, inspect under a tunable light, and adjust.
Heavy defect removal — deep swirls, sanding marks, hard clear
- Pad: microfibre cutting, or wool
- Compound: heavy cut — Menzerna FG400, 3D ACA X-TRA Cut, Koch-Chemie H8.02
- Expect: fast removal, visible haze, a mandatory second step
Standard correction — the usual swirl-and-wash-marring case
- Pad: foam cutting
- Compound: medium cut — Menzerna 2500, Sonax Cut & Finish, Meguiar’s M105
- Expect: most defects gone in two to three passes, light haze on dark paint
Refinement — removing the haze the step above left
- Pad: foam polishing
- Compound: fine polish — Menzerna 3500, Sonax Perfect Finish, Meguiar’s M205
- Expect: gloss, no measurable clear removal worth worrying about
One-step — soft paint, or a car that does not need more
- Pad: foam polishing
- Compound: all-in-one — 3D One, Koch-Chemie F6, Griot’s Complete Compound
- Expect: 60–80% defect removal and a finished gloss in a single pass
A one-step is realistic on soft Japanese or American clear and optimistic on hard German clear. Test before you promise it to anyone.
Reading the paint first
Before choosing anything, find out what you are cutting.
Hard clear coat — most German marques, particularly Audi and BMW. Resists cutting, finishes beautifully once you get there. Start with microfibre and a medium compound; foam alone will disappoint you.
Soft clear coat — most Japanese marques, Tesla, a lot of black paint generally. Corrects quickly and marrs from a hard look. Start with foam and a fine polish; you will often find that is all it needed.
Single-stage paint — older vehicles, some fleet and commercial finishes. There is no clear coat: you are cutting the colour itself, and the pad will come away coloured. Go carefully and stop early.
The test pass tells you more than the badge does. Do one section with the least aggressive combination you think might work. If it works, you have your answer and you did not remove clear coat finding it.
Size and pressure
Pad to plate. The pad should be roughly 20–25 mm larger than the backing plate, no more. A pad that overhangs badly flexes at the edge, builds heat, and tears at the hook-and-loop.
Pressure. Enough to keep the pad flat and the rotation turning, not more. On a long-throw dual-action, if the rotation has stopped you are no longer correcting — you are generating heat. Mark your pad’s edge with a chalk line if you cannot tell.
Speed. Spreading at 1–2, working at 4–5, refining at 3–4. Slow arm speed — about 25 mm per second — beats high machine speed for defect removal, and it is the thing most people get wrong.
When to change the pad
More often than feels necessary. A pad loaded with spent abrasive and removed clear coat stops cutting and starts smearing, and the smearing looks like correction until the light hits it differently.
Clean on the fly — compressed air, or a brush across the face — after every section. Swap to a fresh pad every two to three panels on a full correction. Four cutting pads for a car is not extravagant; it is normal.
What none of this fixes
Abrasion removes clear coat down to the base of a defect. That means:
- Scratches you can feel with a fingernail are usually through the clear. Polishing will round the edges and make them less visible; it will not remove them.
- Etching from bird droppings or water spots may be in the clear (correctable) or through it (not).
- Orange peel is in the paint’s surface texture and needs wet sanding, which is a different discipline.
Filler-heavy glazes will hide all of the above for a few weeks. That is a legitimate thing to do before a sale. It is not correction, and anyone selling it as correction is misleading you.
Browse Compounds & Polishes and Pads — every listing states cut level.