If the ONLY thing you want to do to your paint is apply a coat of wax, then one of these machines is a waste of money. Properly applying a simple coat of wax by hand, and wiping it off, should not cause you to break a sweat. You are simply working the wax gently against the surface and leaving a very thin film behind, allowing it to dry fully and then just wiping it off. Most people make the mistake of using a lot of pressure to apply a wax and unless you're using a cleaner wax, you gain literally nothing by doing this. Things like Meguiar's NXT or Gold Class, Mother's FX, Zaino, P21S, etc are NOT cleaner waxes so they require nothing more than light to moderate pressure. Once they're dry, all you need to do is wipe them off. Repeated buffing and "polishing" with the towel serves no purpose, but could actually end up removing more than just the hazed excess.

If you want to get serious though, and start to remove defects from the paint such as fine swirls, etching from bird droppings, etc and bring up the maximum level of smoothness, reflectivity and shine, then one of these machines is invaluable. The only way you remove these defects is with energy applied to the surface because, quite literally, you are leveling the paint. Yes, technically, you're removing clear coat in order to remove a swirl mark. But you are removing such an incredibly minute amount of clear that you shouldn't worry about it. (Pat, I'll ignore your extremely overzealous approach from days past ). While it is possible to accomplish this task by hand, ain't no way in hell you'll ever catch me doing it again! Too much time, waaaay too much work, and in many cases you simply can not get an equal result, especially on todays modern, hard clear coats. The machine does the work of your arm, only it doesn't get tired, and it opens up the door to a much wider range of cleaners and polishes to accomplish the task. Product removal, once it's done its job of removing defects, is easilly accomplished by hand with a clean microfiber towel.

Once you've gotten rid of the defects the machine makes it very easy to apply a nice thin and uniform coat of wax. Again, you don't need the machine for this step alone, but since you bought one to do the heavy lifting, so to speak, you should take advantage of it to apply wax in the most uniform and thorough way possible. But once again, when that wax hazes over, it wipes away very simply by hand.