I was looking at an 04 sonic blue tonight at the dealership and I noticed swirls in the paint!!! Does the sonic blue show swirls like black does? I want to go with the sonic blue, but like the shadow grey as well.... and if the blue show the swirls then I am going to want to lean towards the grey. What are your thoughts and experiences?

Thanks guys!!!

John

 

I would think Grey would be even worse.

 

I was trying to pick between sonic blue and DSG...trust me, if blue was your gut, like it was mine, don't cheat yourself of what you wanted. I have no swirls on mine and it looks DAMN good.

Best of luck to ya

 

Want to sell your 00 L?

31C

 

no swirls here

 

Thanks for the replys guys. I have wanted a blue lightning since I bought my silver in 00. The true blue was just a little too dark, but I love the sonic. It actauly caused a little bit of contoversy at home. The wife wanted dark shadow grey, and I wanted sonic blue. But she understood how much I love blue trucks and gave in pretty quick. I do think the DSG is a sweet color.

31charlie... sorry the truck is already gone, just update my sig... I sold it to a friend so I can keep any eye on it ;-)

 

I have a DSG and now swirls. When you wax, seal, prime whatever to your paint put everthing on in a straight as possible line (horizontal) and remove in the same way. The exception is wax. That still goes on in a circular fashion. The reason for the horizontal action on the sides of course is that greatly reduces the swirls becuase you aren't making any. Got this from some restoration dude. I can tell you it works. '92 black 5.0, '99 SD Powerstroke crew cab black, '00 Taurus dark blue and the current 'L. No swirls. Good luck.

 

I have a sonic blue with no swirls and that is because I don’t use a buffer on it. I use Zaino and it is put on and buffed off by hand. The sonic blue and dark shadow gray as with any darker color paint will show swirls if someone puts then in the paint by either washing and/or waxing incorrectly or with poor materials.

When you wash use a good wash mitt like sheepskin and use a good quality car wash soap with lots of suds. Wash in back and forth or up and down motions NO rotation. If you use a synthetic polish like Zaino you put it on in up and down motions and NO rotation. Use good quality microfiber towels for drying, polishing and buffing and you GREATLY reduce the possibility of scratching the paint and putting any kind of swirls in it.

Usually swirls come from using a buffer with either a dirty pad, poor quality pad, to much speed, to much pressure on the buffer etc. If you are not a professional with a buffer I would HIGHLY recommend NOT using a buffer or you most likely will introduce swirls into your paint. Once they are there they are there for good. Nothing gets rid of swirls. There are products to HIDE swirls but the only true way to get rid of swirls completely is to wet sand the clear coat…

 

Ive got swirls, but nothing major. Ive used sheepskin to wash and microfiber to dry and still have some. Not near as bad as black shows though. The only way I can see them is if the sun is directly shinning on it.

 

That is true there will always be some even if using the best material and being as **** as I am when washing and polishing my truck. The point being that if you use the best methods and materials then you lesson the amount of find scratches and how they will show up.

It is all about light reflection, so with nice round (swirl) scratches they show up much easier because of how light reflects off the valleys of the scratches. Whereas with up and down or side to side scratches they show up much less. Mine has fine scratches in it as well I don’t consider them “swirl” because they are not round and you really have to look hard at different angles to see them. That is something that most people don’t do, they just look at it and it looks as if there is no fine scratches at all…

 

Lots of opinions which is great. I've read alot about the wash cloth and I personally have had great expeiriance with high quality 100% cotton mits. The nice thing about them is I can wash them along with my cotton towels after each car washing. I've found that sheepskin tends to hold debri in its fibers and even washing the mit doesn't always get it clean.

As for drying I've always used well used cotton towels. My wife did recently get me some rediculously priced drying towels from Griots Garage. I guess she was tired of losing our bath towels. I'm not sure how microfiber would work drying since it doesn't seem that absorbant but maybe I'll look into it.

 

MHMCGILL:

Try the one I have below for drying. I only have one and it completely dries my Lightning. It would take me 2 – 3 cotton towels to dry my last truck. These below are excellent quality microfiber for different applications as listed below:

For buffing these are excellent. I have 3 of them:

Buffing

For drying these are excellent. I have one and it will do the entire L:

Drying

For miscellaneous jobs, can be used for buffing as well and are really good. I have 3 of these:

Miscellaneous task

It is amazing how these towels work and feel on the paint. After using them it makes the 100% cotton towels feel like sand paper on the paint.

These are excellent quality towels and you will not be disappointed…

 

Who knows what they did to swirl up the one that you saw. You have to work much harder to screw up the "medium" shades compared to black. I've seen many flawless Sonic Blue and DSG trucks. Blacks look scuffy when they get washed the first time.

 

I have some swirls. Waxing it would help too, but havent had the time lately.

 

Well I have the blue one and I hate to admit it and hate even more that my truck has scratches/swirls all over it. I think I got to excited when buying it and I should have looked at other Sonic Blue ones in the area. I don’t plan on driving this truck much and I think this one sat on the lot for a while. I don’t know if I am expecting too much, but the rotors already have rust all over them (on the part the pads do not touch) my rear end has some missing paint and is starting to rust up, just not my idea of a brand new show truck, but I know the dealers just don’t care, they just want to sell you the truck! Now I have to find a way to do something about it. I have a few good scratches along the front bumper that have a shade of white in them, kind of like if the mechanic had dirty pants on when he/she was fixing my pulley. I think the other thing that killed me is that the dealership washed the truck when it was in for service!!! I think they ran it through an automatic car wash.

I gotta tell you I get so aggravated when I look at my brand new truck (that has less then 300 miles on it) and it has swirls all over the place. Is there anything I can do now? I have Zaino products and plan on my next weekend off for a full wash, clay bar, polish and wax. Am I wasting my time? Should I go back to the dealership? I had a 93 Teal cobra, and a 00 Silver Lighting before this and I washed them all the time in the same manor as I do the Sonic blue, so I don’t think it’s my process per say. I will take some pics tonight and give you all an idea of what I am talking about.

Sorry I just felt like venting!!