[slowdown_dan]

That's right. You have a few options with Perfect Finish (PF). You can:

1) use it for both compound AND polishing with a finishing pad if the paint condition is decent (least amount of correction, 1 pad, 1 liquid abrasive)

2) You could also use the PF on a one step MF pad (lake country makes these, and the Uro white and black mf pads would also work here) but final level of polish might not be as high here (again 1 step, 1 pad, 1 abrasive) *This is for those who want an improved paint condition and are just going to apply a sealant or wax, i.e what I did to my wife's car because she doesn't really care about the last 10% and couldn't have it sitting in the garage for a full week of deep correction**

3) You can use PF on a MF cutting pad for the compound stage and then use it again on a finishing MF pad for the polishing phase (middle amount of correction, 2 steps, 2 different pads, 1 liquid abrasive). **I would probably start here unless the car was a garage queen all its life**

4) The most amount of correction in two steps (if you want to go this far) would be something like m205 or Cutmax from Sonax (love the cutmax, no dusting) on a mf cutting pad, and then follow it up with the Perfect Finish on a mf finishing pad. (two steps, two pads, two different levels of liquid abrasive)

In any of these "recipes" you have to decide the condition of your paint and what it would call for. As almost everyone else has stated, start with the lowest amount of cut and overall work involved and move up. Tape off an area maybe 1x1 that is representative of the overall average paint condition of the car. Since you know you're going to be running the PF as a final step in any of these recipes (at least I think you should) I would buy that and (2) MF cutting pads and (2) finishing pads. Work your way down my numbered list till you reach what looks acceptable to you. If you think you might need to go all the way to 4, just grab a 250ml bottle of the heavy cut solution of your choice at the time of order of the other things, just to have so you don't have to wait around for it if your test panel shows that Level 3 wasn't enough and you need to go up to that level 4. It's also always good to keep this in the cabinet in case you need to polish out an "oh sh*t" accident as most of the best heavy cuts will remove somewhere around 1500 grit sandpaper marring.

Level 5 is a wet sand, but lets not go there yet. Hit us up if you get through the car and think this is needed in spots.

In either case there is almost no situation where I think you would have to use 3 different liquid abrasives with the technology available today. It's not even about achieving a better result, it's just wasted time and money.