Was DA or Rotary, now, how good is the Flex XC 3401?

My reply was to clarify incorrect info, Flex makes nice tools(I have a rotary, and the new PE-14 rotary is really nice) the 3401 is built solid and it works.............just not near as well as the Rupes and Griots. "Good evening to you as well" and the GT3RS in my avatar now sports a 4.1 liter engine build and is the "Sh**" it is so nice................. Sharkwerks FTW.

 

Craig -

I have a couple of Rotary machines and the Flex 3401VRG and the Meguiars Random Orbital.
My Flex 3401VRG is 4 years old I believe, and the biggest challenge I ever had with it at first is that it rotates counter-clockwise, while all other machines listed rotate clockwise.

I was able to improve the way it worked for me by going to a smaller backing plate that used 5" pads vs the 6" pad backing plate it came with. It just seems to be made for the smaller backing plate and pad combination. And later on Flex even introduced another option of 2 different backing plate sizes with a smaller one still - I believe its a 4" backing plate for that sized pads.

Although I use a Rotary for all correction work, I would have to agree with the guys above - a Rotary takes a lot more skill to get good at than a Forced Random Orbital/Random Orbital, and since you are only going to use this for your personal vehicles, it would make sense to consider a machine that offers Random Orbital technology vs the Rotary technology.

Then there is the newer microfiber pad option that is supposed to work really great on Random Orbital machines too.

Good luck with your research ! There are a few machines to consider but it is not Rocket Science. You will do just fine.
Perhaps if you live close to someone already here, or maybe even know of a good Detailer out there already, he may let you try out a few different machines too..

Dan F

 

Very true Dan, but a few people have accused me of being a tad over-analytical in the past.

:gasp:

Cheers

Craig