okay well im looking forward to my first attempt at using the PC BUT i have some rock chips to fix but im tired of waiting for my touch up paint to come in. will it be okay to do the whole car tomorrow then just touch up say in a week or so once i get my touch up paint in? thanks!

 

You could do that, but once you put the touch up paint on the chips they will still kinda stand out against the freshly polished paint, so you'll have to polish those areas again if you want to make them blend better.

 

okay, im just worried about how thick the clear is. how many times have you detailed your car or how many times can you before you notice the clear starting to lose its depth?

 

You aren't going to lose much of the clearcoat with one or two runs of the PC. Once you finish detailing your car, try to keep it as scratch-free as possible so you'll only have to polish it about once every 4 months. At that rate, the clearcoat should last around 3-4 years. It's a rough estimate, but I know MikeyC here polishes his car in that interval of time. I'm sure someone around here knows how long it'll take to polish out the clearcoat.

 

The answer to that question depends on the strength of the abrasive in the polish, how aggressive a pad is used, and the speed of the ROB. Given an extreme example, I could use a ROTARY buffer at high speed with a wool pad and that highly abrasive compound paste and go through the clearcoat is seconds. That's why I recommend a ROB instead of a rotary, a suitable foam pad, and a polish in your favorite manufacturer's line-up that is about second from the most gentile. You may spend more buffing time this way, but you will remove only what needs removing.

And, I would touch up first, and polish later, after the stuff dries and cures.

 

Going with ligher polishes first is good advice, however if you look directly at the sun's reflection at an angle you will see it is very hard to get some swirls out of neglected paint. The hood and trunk are always the hardest to do, and I go to my most abraisive polish and pad immediately for those areas.