hand waxing is safer for the paint. even though you donty notice it, a buffer is taking off minute amounts on the top layer of paint/clearcoat. after a while it will start to look a little dull. I have been washing/waxing all my cars on a regular basis for many years as well... Doing it by hand always looks cleaner and never shows any kind of swirls. Any dark color car will swirl when you use a buffer even if you do it right. you will still see swirls in the sunlight. Like I said, When I was younger I worked at a high end car lot for about 2 years. I waxed BMW's. M-B's, jags, and all kinds of other nice cars. We did detail work on customer's cars and also detailed new or traded in cars. We had three of four buffers there but I would never touch one and I always was complemented on how good the wax job was and how it was better than other places that used buffers. working yourself to death rubbing in the wax always produces a better final result and is more consistant and smooth. If you buff over the same place just one extra pass with a buffer you will see a difference when the car is in the light, especially on dark cars... A white or silver car is not as hard to buff with a buffer, and is much more forgiving, but I dont take any chances with it...