I have been using Lake Country pads for as long as I can remember.  Sure I have a few random Meguiar’s, Scholl and Rupes pads, but 95% of the pads we use are Lake Country and they are used 99% of the time :).  Sometime last year DI switched to smaller profile pads (.875″) and I wasn’t a huge fan.  We were used to the thicker (1.25″) pads that were 5.5″ in diameter and the thinner ones weren’t working well for us with the Flex 3401.  I was very fortunate that Lake Country manufactured a few of the old pads (same thickness, but slightly better backing design) for us and that’s what we’ve been using for quite some time now.

Recently I got a chance to try out these new Lake Country Force Pads and I’m very impressed.  All of us at the shop really liked working with them the moment we tried it.  As I said, 99% of the time we’re using a Flex 3401 polisher and these were a great fit.

As always, they come in a variety of colors, thus variety of cutting and finishing options.

The new grey pad is very hard and great for cutting, although I haven’t used that one as much as the others.  The white and orange pads are ones we use most of the time in the shop and the new pads definitely performed well.  I’m not sure if it was just because it’s a cool new pads, but all three of us at the shop liked the new pads more than the old.  They seemed to work really well, easy to control and performed their duty perfectly.  I was initially wondering why the center had a hole and we figured it was either for cooling or centering, both of which are true.  I’m assuming they’re a bit easier to use due to the hole as polish doesn’t collect at the center and there’s less foam on the surface.  Even so, the correction doesn’t suffer at all.

The other great thing is the new shape…

As cliche as it may sound, the rounded design is both safe and effective.  It’s safe in that the backing hook and loop or the backing plate are far enough from the edge of the foam to not cause any damage when working on tight corners.  It’s effective because you can apply very even pressure that gets distributed equally due to the angled edges.  I failed to get a photo of this, but when it’s compressed a bit the edge actually becomes sharper, allowing you to polish tight corners effectively.

The backing of the pad goes all the way to the edge of the foam.  This works well when centering the pad and also makes removal safer since you’re not pulling the backing from the actual foam, possibly delaminating and ruining the pad…

The regular Flex 3401 backing plate fits great on the larger 6.5″ pad and our modified backing plate is a perfect fit for the new 5.5″ pads.  As you may have read in one of my previous articles, at my shop we almost exclusively use 5.5″ pads, so we had to modify the Flex 3401 backing plate to fit.  It’s simply trimmed to be slightly less in diameter than the actual pad backing…

The various sizes are obviously great as there are many different parts of a car where a different sized pad is more effective and efficient.  We have been using the 6.5″ pads on flatter surfaces like hoods, doors, trunks and roofs.  The 5.5″ pads still remain our favorite and are used on just about anything.  Finally, the 3″ pads are great for license plate areas, door pillars and some tight bumpers…

Here’s a shot of one of the orange 5.5″ pads on our very much so used and abused Flex 3401.  A little ad within this review for the Flex 3401… These polishers are just about invincible.  I’ve owned 4 (still do) and after 3-4+ years of heavy use and all these machines require is a regular brush change and blowing out the inside.  Oiling the inside of the housing under the pad is a great idea of course, but one of the machines has proven it doesn’t require it :).  Only one I destroyed by not switching the brushes for a long time and the armature went bad, but for $120 I will have it working like new.

Back on topic!  The new LC Force Pads are great and I highly recommend it, that’s about all I wanted to say initially.  We’ll slowly be replacing a lot of our older used pads with these as everyone at the shop likes them a lot.  They’re the typical Lake Country quality and performance, but with added features that take them to the next level.  I’ll be ordering quite a few more soon and I can’t wait to hear what others have to say.