Soft Buff Foam Polishing Disc 5"

Nice product at great price, just the right size with a little extra room for sanding.

I used these pads for my JFj easy pro disc resurfacer. You have to cut them down to side but WOW they work perfect. They don't leave any swirl marks at all when combined with 215 polish also sold by McGuires. Use normal JFj pads to get a bulk of the large scratches out, then switch to this pad with 215 compund to finish it off. I promise you your discs will look mint. Maguires should make these pads to the specs (size) of the JFj easy pro pads. They would make a killing! I recommend these 1000% percent.

Good quality pads.

I initially didn't care too much for the Meguiar's foam pads, thinking that they were too coarse and would scratch the paint, but I found if you use the pad recommended by Meguiar's for the compound you're using, they actually do a better job at removing fine scratches than most other pads I've tried. The maroon pad is aggressive and cuts well with Meguiars M100 Pro compound, but you have to keep a lot of compound on the pad to keep it from grabbing. The yellow pad is good for finish polishing with M02, M09 Swirl Remover or M205. I then finish with M03 Machine Glaze (with a black Chemical Guys hex pad). These products are all body shop friendly, meaning no silicones or ingredients that can cause problems with paint adhesion.

After using these for a number of years, I have found their sweet spot. They are versatile in that I can use various polishes, cleaner waxes, and even compounds depending on my desired results and the paint surface. They wash easily, dry quickly, plus the foam and backing material maintain their integrity after dozens of washes. One note: these were designed for shorter throw/orbit dual action polishers and not the longer throw machines. Meguiars designed these to be used with their MT300 DA and similar (Porter Cable, etc). Long throw machines shorten the life of these pads. Let me explain. After using them on my Rupes 21 Mark III I see the foam begin to tear where the edge of the polisher backing plate attaches to the black backing material of the pad. This occurs consistently after the equivalent use of 10 or so complete average size vehicles. The contact surface of the pad is still in tact as is the black backing material. The extra heat and relatively violent rotation with the longer throw machine isn't how these were designed to be used. Even after the tearing I can use the pads for another 5-10 (sometimes more) complete vehicles but it requires being more careful when removing the pad from the backing plate.

All the work was performed on my 2005 E46, which is known to have harder paint when compared to Japanese cars. I prepped the surface my doing a two bucket wash and clay barring after. I did not do a chemical decontamination. This review is coming from someone who got bored during the pandemic and decided to compound and polish his car himself. I was between this pad and the Griot’s orange cutting pad. My main concern was that this was much thinner and it may have a durability issue. From 4.5 hours of compounding, I can say that it held up wonderfully. I cleaned it with a pad brush pretty carelessly and it held up with no tearing of the foam. I used Meguiar’s ultimate compound on both pads. I primed them completely using Apex Detail YouTube videos as my guide and followed his one pass polishing method to see what results I was capable of. The DA polisher used was a Bauer 7.5 AMP DA that you can get from your local Harbor Freight. Vibration with the Griot’s pad was a lot and kind of fatiguing on speed setting of 4-5. While on the Red slim pad, it was almost absent. After getting my technique down, I did half of my hood with the Griot’s and the other half with Meguiar’s. Due to the reduced vibration, I felt as though there was much more control with the Meguiar’s which led to more confidence with adding pressure. I will say that I do believe the pads can probably achieve the same cut, BUT the Griot’s might take more time. The positive about the Griots is that it is more forgiving with mistakes and learning while the Meguiar’s has a bit of a learning curve, although only slightly more than the Griot’s. I got better results with the Meguiar’s and followed it up with an Ultimate Polish. Between the two, I would definitely recommend the Meguiar’s Red Foam DA Cutting pad due to it’s decreased vibration and better cutting performance. It took out swirls, overspray, water etching, and a scratch that looked like someone keyed my car.

I love these pads for finishing my paint. I have a black corvette, so the paint is really hard, and will show every little scratch. This as a finishing pad works 10/10. I love them. I've done a couple other cars and they too have fantastic results. I've been using meguiars finishing compound (205) and it has worked excellently. Whatever your polish is just dab a few small dots on the outer edge of this pad. The key is that you replace these pads frequently. The pad does most of the work, and will become embedded with junk from your paint. More compound just will increase the cut and reduce how fine the polish cut is. That's really the only downside. I don't find washing these has any real benefit. I've tried hand washing, soaking, machine washing, various different soaps, water soaking etc. A new pad just works better, leaves a nicer polish. The best option you have is going over kill with your blowout using an air compressor. I sound like a fanboy, but I'm really confident this pad works excellently. Probably a good option for a one step product on softer paint as well. Always make sure you test your speed, pressure, and compound amount on a safe panel to make sure you don't blast through paint. I will always use these pads.

It’s a really friendly pad for beginners. It’s really hard to mess things up