Cheap car polishing buffing machines? Any good?

groovebox, Mar 31, 3:29am
Any good! It only cost $50 so in the morning I will try it on the wife's older import - whose paint work is not too bad but a bit dull. I have hand waxed it in the past - but it takes ages.

Other then following the directions on the bottle of wax and the polisher itself.anything I should be aware of!

Thanks for any comments.

neville48, Mar 31, 4:24am
If the paintwork is a bit dull it will need a cut before you wax it anyhow, the buffer machines are good but if you have a dark paint colour you have to cut through from heavy,medium,light cut before waxing or you get swirl marks highly visible at night under light. I prefer to finish by hand and see what is happening. A profesional painter would probably use the machine to the end.

morrisjvan, Mar 31, 4:42am
the cheap ones tend to be dual action, and as soon as you make contact with the vehicle they pretty much stop spinning. They are great for filling up you wheelie bin.

attitudedesignz, Mar 31, 5:10am
Can you post pic' of said machine and the products you intend to use.

neville48, Mar 31, 6:57am
"and before the final glaze.by hand !
I think we use wax polishes to put the silicone surface that we are constantly being told we need to fight New Zealands high UV.

attitudedesignz, Mar 31, 7:05am
Yes that's right, glaze. Which is NOT to be confused with a wax or polish. It is more to remove compound residue, finger prints and dust.

tigra, Mar 31, 7:48am
Not the one I have, however I have to say I can probably do just as good a job manually but it would take me a hell of a lot more work. My only complaint is that they tend to send polish everywhere.

unideck, Mar 31, 7:59am
Just be done with it and buy a proper one, $50 polishing units are a total waste of good money, Rupes is the only one to look for.

arrithedog, Mar 31, 9:02am
Think mine was less than 50 bucks from supercheap and does a fine job. Just need to use good product, like MER.

silvervixen1962, Mar 31, 10:15am
My partner had one of those green things from super cheap start pouring smoke out the vent holes on him it was his first electric polisher and it was his last.

intrade, Mar 31, 10:30am
you want the one for about 84$ from supersheep that looks loke a big angle grinder with variable speed. thats what i got its better then the 50$ one got to buy it on a 25% off day just like this saturday
http://www.supercheapauto.co.nz/online-store/products/Rockwell-Car-Polisher-RS4900-1200W-180mm.aspx!pid=135285#Combo

doug207, Mar 31, 10:50am
You want the style Intrade has, I have a FLEX one, not exactly cheap. but it's seriously decent and has about a million different attachments available (mine gets used for paint buffing, sanding and metal finishing).
That one Intrade posted would be a good little unit though

gammelvind, Mar 31, 7:15pm
Yep Rupes or maybe Festo are the best on the market and a good business investment, on the other hand Ozito make a good one for the keen amateur or a pro back up. I have seen a number of paint shops using them as their backup.

groovebox, Mar 31, 8:26pm
Darn i I got one of the $50 ones - nervous now! Sheesh.:(

tgray, Mar 31, 8:34pm
Best result is to hand polish on using cloth and then machine buff off.

groovebox, Mar 31, 8:44pm
Hey thanks for that tgray! Good idea!

intrade, Mar 31, 9:06pm
50 bux ones are good enough for the jobs you normally do by hand whip off cram-polish, I had to fix my cheap unit it burned across the conections where the power goes to the switch on to one of the screws causing a short. So i just removed one screw holding the whole thing togather.they are crap but i managed to fix it.