Side by Side Comparison of: Black & Decker vs Neiko

I bought it to do some polishing but noticed from another review that it can be used as a massager. I gave it a try and the result is very good. It is quite powerful and does not hurt like specialized messages with balls inside. The pad backer is kind of soft so I am not sure whether it will last. But for the price it definitely is worth the money.

Not just for your car!! Haha. My friends and I use it as a massager after a hard workout or when our legs are stiff. It's amazing for working out tight thigh and calf muscles, as well as working out butt knots if you prop it against something. And if you're flexible or if you have someone with you, it's really great for sore arms and tight backs. I'm absolutely not joking about this - give it a shot!

Nice little buffer. Use it on my camper and car. Saves a lot of elbow grease. Can use with one hand if need be.

I run a detailing company on the side and I've been doing it about 12 years and used over 20 different types of polishes and waxes. Most of the reviews that are bad are people who have no idea what they are doing. I keep reading easily correctable problems. Here's the low down.

I remember I paid like $26 the first time for this buffer. It lasted heavy use for 3 years 2 months. On small aircraft, cars, trucks, etc. But I definitely got my money's worth.

The good:
-The orbital buffing takes a beating and keeps on going.
-You can press hard enough to get a good buffing and it's motor is strong enough to keep going.
-The ergonomics are great. Holding at different angles etc moving around hard to get places and around bottom of airplanes and corners of body panels.
-The 6in is great because it can get a lot more that you don't have to redo by hand later. (Tight spaces etc)
-The on/off button is easy to use and press quickly and is in a good spot on it for that.
-The cord is connected to it in a good spot. I jut skin it over my shoulder and it stays out of my way most of the time.
-The handles allow a firm press with two hands and much greater control over it.
-It's less than $30. Way better than any of its competitors for what you get.

The Bad:
-I have Black and Decker products that have lasted way longer than 3 years. So I was disappointed when I heard a pop and lost it. I still have a cheap nicad battery operated craftsmen bottom of the line drill that is 9 years old and works great.
-After just under 3 years the glue started to lose its effectiveness and the pad was starting to separate. But it was an easy fix with some gorilla glue.
-As soon as you try to one hand it in the middle, you accidentally turn it off and it gets annoying sometimes from a palm press. Minor issue.
-6in pads are hard to find when not looking on Amazon. 2/6 auto places near me had what I was looking for.

Tips:
-Don't use any of the pads that come in the box. They are crap. But that's not what you're buying it for. Buy aftermarket ones on here.
-There's a foam pad on Amazon that works great. Quick search will find it at reasonable prices.
-Watch basic tutorials on waxing if you're new to buffers on YouTube. They will solve 95% of the issues I read about on here.
-Give the buffer a chance to work. Don't have just one issue and decide it's crap. It's not crap. You're just getting frustrated too quickly. Try changing polishes or waxes. That might be the issue or your paint might be too far gone to get the result you want etc. It's a buffer. Not a magic machine.
-If you use it correctly with good polishes and waxes you will still get a great result 90% of the time.
-Any general car, NuFinish works wonders. I suggest Meguiars, Turtle Wax, Adams polishes, or Chemical guys and their top of the line products on special cars. I use Turtle Wax Black on my black truck.

Overall:
Definitely worth the money and buying again. It's competitors just aren't that great in comparison. There could be improvements that I would pay another ten bucks for. But it's inexpensive, does the job well for a few years of heavy abuse, and you have great results for an inexpensive investment.

I did a search for "The Best" orbital polishers and one list had this listed as #2. I love it. I have tried the fancy multiple speed polishers that cost hundreds of dollars. I found them heavy, noisy, and most require two handed operation. Not the Black and Decker! It is light, whisper quiet and you can easily use it one handed. I have detailed three cars with it and every one comes out fantastic. The foam pads work the best, but they are hard to find. If you make sure to not remove the pad from the finish while at high speed, it will last for at least the entire car.

Outstanding buffer, appears to be extremely well built, in the class of those 3-4 dollar units you see advertised. Plenty of power, great speed control, and the locking trigger is a real plus. The soft start had me going in the very begining, thought it was a dead unit. Hold the trigger and after a couple of seconds she takes off. A great product so far!

This is a pretty good buffer for the money. So far for 1 days work still working great. Solidly built. This also appears to be a high-quality item for the price. I am not expecting to ever have to buy another one.

Great Tool and Great Service Thanks.

Very nice buffer but the handle I don't like I had to buy a straight handle put on it

Extremely useful tool. Firm and sturdy although a bit heavier than I though, this is to my advantage since no pressure is necessary when horizontal application is done. Variable speed works fine. A detailing job of my boat is worth $200.00 and the tool payed for itself on its first use.

Very well made machine - I love it. It's light weight and powerful. I love where they put the speed controller is very handy. I use this commercially and have not had any problems with it.

So far this economical buffer has performed well after several waxes on my Chevy Tahoe.

I would recommend buying velcro and placing it on the original pad in order to accommodate velcro style pads.

Worked well. Used it to buff out paint transfer from garage wall to car. Don't ask . Lol. But took all paint transfer off and bumper looks new again

Works great! After years and years of using a 10" I was skeptical of using the 6". Now that I've used the 6" I can say that its much easier to use and stays at speed without binding up.

Easy to operate, followed 2 recommendations of other reviews. Used Velcro tape to attach better pass, and got a great massage.

I don't know why the round foam things that came with it don't fit. I tried to put one on and it ripped :(
The cloth one fit and worked fine, though my use for it was, no doubt, rather unorthodox. We have Danes that get nose prints and slobber all over the windows, so I put a dab of extreme duty glass cleaner on this thing and I buffed the windows. Worked great!

Works pretty good has a decent amount of power and it's got a soft start

Cheaper item that works well. First one I was sent was missing bolts for the handle (Amazon warehouse)

Works well.There is a delay when you start it.I think its to keep the buffing compound "sling" down to a minimum.

low speeds it has some issues cutting out and even the lowest speeds still was fairly quick, so using it as a polisher for applying protection wax took some muscle work. Overall it works well for buffing/polishing/waxing my car.

high quality buffer, works perfectly and built a high standard. Only complaint is that it's very heavy, but can't complain considering it's 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of a name brand buffer

Great buffer for the price! Speed is controlled by a dial with an on/off trigger. So far I'm pleased!

This was my first time using an orbital buffer. The pads seem cheap, one of them ripped right away. It did not seem to buff off the wax or polish, rather just smear it. The wax was completely dry and came off perfectly fine by hand. Being new, it was probably operator error.

Really fun - should have bought one of these years ago. I second the complaints about the on button placement and no way to put the buffer down without it rolling over and turning itself on. I keep a clean towel on the ground so I can put it on that. Not so great at putting product on, but much easier to buff it all off after.

The pads it came with sucks. The pad ripped and the buffer pad did not take off the wax. Left spots so I had to manually polish. I guess I get what I paid for, poor quality.

Good product...crappy pads(blue) though.

It's good for putting on polish or wax, but not fast enough to remove it

Works great. The reason for 3 stars is the "Soft Start". It is pretty annoying, its not really a soft start, more like a delayed start. You also have to wait for the motor to completely stop before it will start again which can be aggravating.

can not use a buffing pad with a hole in middle

needs a bonnet without an edge. will scratch if you don;t keep it flat and let it roll to the side.

Product is very well made,However it weighs almost 9 LBS,It is a good machine but I don't think I would want to use it for any length of time.

Not realy good but it works

OK good

Just not a good product. If every car had only flat surfaces then it may be ok, but until then I wouldn't bother. Doesn't put on smooth and leaves marks- I had to hand buff everything.

After about 3 uses began to turn on & off b/c of an issue w/the cord

under powered. did not get nooks and crannies. I found myself using a cloth as much as this unit.

The buffer will not take off the polish so make up your mind to use a clean microfiber cloth to take it off
It doesn't spin fast enough

I like the handles on this polisher. It's easy to hold when working on the side of the car and easy to extend one handed on the roof. The problem I had is that when I tried to remove the pad (a cotton pad with elastic ring) from the machine, the rubber piece peeled right off the machine. The rubber pad is just glued onto the plastic part of the spindle.

Rather than try to send it back, I've re-attached the rubber pad using Gorilla Glue. So far it's working. I don't see other complaints about this so perhaps was just a mfg. defect on my particular unit.

arrived with NO handle, and NO backing pad as clearly showsn in the pic, AND stated in the product details, No instructions, I plugged it in and it does work... so far. Was looking forward to giving it a try, can't now.

Wanted to use this with a buffing wheel to buff out some alloy wheels. There was no nut included to just attach a loose pad. Haven't decided if I will send it back.

returned the item because the switch failed

Seems to be pretty sturdy. The problem is there's a lag from when you pull the trigger to when the motor starts. It's not the ramp up time. It actually lags and does nothing for 2-3 seconds, prior to moving. I thought it was DOA until I held the trigger in. This made it difficult for me to use. I returned it. I'll spend the extra cash and buy a higher quality machine.

Starts slow and not variable speed as I hope it to be. Not a good choice and would not recommend.

Some ad-normal sound when it turned on. Returned next day.

Speed is too high it thrown the pad cover. What can I do. If I return it shipping cost is high . Loss up to $30. Doesn't having hoop & loop tape for fixing the pad cover . Speed controlling switch must be needed.

does not work

The power switch broke less than 60 days in and the product ineligible for return.

This does not work at all on furniture. You can do better by hand. Returned product

Burned from the first use.

Be careful with this brand. Ordered the polisher, did not check it upon delivery. It sat for a bit. Went to use it and would not operate. I tried to search Neiko on the web and they do not have a website to handle warranty issues. I would not recommend this product. Made in China and appears to be questionable quality.

No stars at all it does not work right out of the box unless I tap on the housing every time I fired it up which in a short time will break the plastic housing, not very happy with this product

Heavy, loud, and worked for 2 mins out of the box and stopped.

Has a slight trigger issue and have to hold the trigger for a few seconds before it will actually start to rotate.

Seemed to work fine, for 10 minutes. Stopped and would not work at all. Junk.

if I haven't missed a chance to return the polisher, I would have done this a long time ago. Few issues to note which make the polisher very hard to work with. If you stopped polishing and need to touch up a little spot, the polisher takes a very slow 2-3-5 seconds to get up to speed. Basically once you let got the button and repress, it it won't start right of way. Also, noticed that the very slow speed seems very fast. You have to work very fast with this one in order to make sure it won't burn the paint. If you decide to buy this polisher, make sure you are ok with above mentioned issues.