I've heard a lot of positive comments about Porter cable's 2474. I noticed Porter Cable is owned by Black and Decker which gives me second thoughts. I'm sure they're better than the B&C labeled stuff but since Black and Decker is horrible that doesn't give me much assurance. Has anyone here had a bad experience.

As long as I have your eyes. What pads do I just have to have to remove minor scratches and apply wax and what's the least expensive route to obtaining them, other than shoplifting? Thanks

 

I have had good luck with mine.

I use white, or yellow pads. They are fairly soft

do a search, one of our members did a very detailed thread on detailing.

As far as price, I get them at a local hardware store for about $5 apiece, They may be cheaper on a site like autogeek.net.

Mike in orange can probably give you lots of info as well.

You would be hard pressed to ruin your paint with the porter cable.

 

I love mine. Got it here:

http://www.tools-plus.com/porter-cab...m_term=P-C7424

Upgraded to 7" pads (with mount) for ~$50. Here:

http://www.autogeek.net/bupo.html

 

I havent had any problems with mine, as far as pads I use only Adams pads
.Car Wax, Car Polish, Auto Detail Supplies - Adam's Polishes - 2nd Generation 7.5" Polish/Wax Pads and Absorber Backing Plate

Plus add the word Crossfire in the where it asks for coupon and receive an additional discount.

 

Never had a problem with mine, my son and I own it jointly and he has used it on a lot of his friends cars. I use it at least twice a month on our cars so from a dependibility standpoint.......if it can stand up to my son's use its a good product. As for pads etc Auto Geek has an excellent web site that not only shows you how but what to use. To get minor scratches out I use an orange Lake County cutting pad. For polishing I use Lake County gray buffing pads. These are the 6" ones, there are others available. I use Meguiars products when it comes to scratch removal, also does a great job on your headlights.....Zaino polish for the rest. One of the beauties of the orbital polisher is that its pretty much idiot proof, you are not supposed to be able to burn through the clear coat. Well just a word of warning, I fgured a way to do it on my wife's Mercedes. It can be done, I was trying to get a pretty deep scratch out and about 15 minutes into it bingo. So you still have to be careful. The PC is a great product, you can literally buff out a Crossfire in 1/2 hour tops.

 

Get one, you won't regret it.

There are three basic types of foam pads on the market - cutting, polishing and finishing (forget about wool pads with a D/A polisher) and you'll really only use two of them, the polishing and finishing. The action and power of the D/A is usually not compatible with a cutting pad and quite often you'll get some light hazing of the paint. That's fine as long as you know it going in, but most people don't so they get all freaked out when their paint doesn't look perfect after using the cutting pad and then get double irritated when they find out they need to use a second pass to remove the hazing.

If you use a polishing pad, like the Meguiar's W8207, in conjunction with something like the new Meguiar's Ultimate Compound you should be able to remove the vast majority of minor defects from your Crossfire. The paint on these cars is relatively hard so you tend to need something with a bit of oomph to correct it. Ultimate Compound makes use of some very specialized abrasives found in Meguiar's top of the line professional products but in a more user friendly formula. It leaves a beautiful finish so there shouldn't be a need for an intermediate step.

Use a finishing pad, like the Meguiar's W9207, to apply your wax. This makes it super easy to apply a very thin, uniform coat of wax, which is what you want. Most people apply wax way to heavy - it's just a waste of product and makes for more difficult removal.

Oh, and there is no industry standard when it comes to pad color. So when someone says to use a yellow pad or a white pad, find out who's yellow or white pad they're talking about. It can make a huge difference.

 

Is there anything better than the Porter Cable 7424?

Something with a little more torque and rpms?

 

Yes, the Meguiar's G110 has a bit more but they're pretty close. Meguiar's sold the PC7424 for about 15 years under our own name but when we wanted PC to make some changes they wouldn't so we just sourced our own manufacturer to build to our specs.

 

I love mine. No issues here.

 

Thanks everyone, Lot's of good information! In the past I've used this ancient Craftsmen high speed rotary but I've never used it on black and onetime I took the paint down to the primer on an edge. So the 7424 with a foam pad (or a few) sounds like the ticket.

P.S. SONORONOS I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU THERE FOR A SECOND.

 

PC is good stuff. I am a woodworker and use several of their products. THey are made like the good old B&D but with great quality. I am pretty picky about tools and I like PC. I have owned all the leading power tool manuafacturers and have been and are currently happy with Porter cable.

 

Thanks Nate_Man, I remember a long long time ago when B&D did make good stuff. It appears making junk is more profitable.

 

Crazy thing is the way companies play to the American appetite. They create a high class brand name (with the quality of the old products that got the customer loyalty in the first place) and add a new badge to it with some additional bells and whistles and viola out pops a Lexus or an Infiniti.

When I was in Japan it was funny to see almost no Lexus or Infiniti cars on the streets only cars that looked like them (what we call in the US Lexus and Infiniti) with the Toyota and Nissan badging! In Japan they knew how to cater to the American taste for image. Not that this is a bad thing for quality and posh but very good marketing nonetheless!

 

Yes! Americans love image and are willing to shell out big bucks for it, even if it's only a different badge. I'm convinced the Crossfire would have sold like hotcakes if it had Mercedes badges all over it.