Hi guys, thank you so much for following up and answering my questions!
@falcaineer, thank you for letting me know that the formulation has changed. The verbage on the website doesn't reflect that to what I can see.
For polishing my experience is strictly with my previous car, which was a black Honda with very soft paint that required a gentle touch to correct. This vehicle I am working with now is a 2019 VW with a "pure grey" paint color. Not sure how hard/soft it is. I hear VW paint is very hard generally but then some of the grey or black paints i hear are much softer. That being said, the vehicle is only a few months old and doesn't have much damage beyond some car-wash installed swirls from the previous owner. I attached a pic of it.
I guess when it came to choosing the one step and the white pad it was me being overly cautious about my experience and erring on the side of not correcting it enough as opposed to overdoing it and marring the clear coat on it, while also trying to spend less than $200 on my Adam's order, lol. Sounds like me taking the easy route is not gonna get me the results I want, though, depending on the hardness of this VW paint. Perhaps I'll order a one step pad, if I use this liquid with the two different pads do you guys think I can get close to a 2-step with just the one product?
Thanks again everyone, and thanks for slappin some education on me.