Light Scratch Marks

[jhorton]

I have a Black 2000 Grand Am GT. After washing it I noticed some light scratch marks on the car. What could I use or try to get these out?

[sunrunner_pei]

Originally posted by jhorton
I have a Black 2000 Grand Am GT. After washing it I noticed some light scratch marks on the car. What could I use or try to get these out?

Are they scratches or swirl marks?

[jhorton]

They are light scratches in the clear coat.

[sunrunner_pei]

Some professional buffing will probably take them out. Otherwise, there are several products on the market you can use to fill them... Meguiars ScratchX comes to mind.

[Kristi]

meguiars scratch X,, Great Stuff,, plus it smells good too!!!

[Indy Ram Air]

Zainos Z5 is also a good choice for small scratches and swirl marks. It will take several applicatiions before you can start seeing a difference. The layers of polish will build up layers in the scratches.

If it is deep enough to penetrate the clear coat you may have to
have it professionally buffed out. I have also used 3M Perfect - IT Foam Polishing Glaze.


I hope this helps.


Doug

[navybluese00]

Yeah, it depends on the type of scratches and how many there are. Professional buffing is good if it's too far gone for anything else, like 3m or Zaino or anything. You have nothing to lose by trying to take care of it yourself first. Good luck with it.

[kmikl]

Yeah, if it's a little gauge in the clear coat I've had a lot of success using clear coat compound, but it's DEFINITELY the last step before taking it to a pro.

Usually if it's just swirls, try claying the paint first (this will definitely need to be done. Every black car I've had looked about 400 times better after claying), then try the scratchX, then see if the Gold Class wax will help. after that, clear coat compound (be damned careful, black cars don't take kindly to bad compounding), then a professional.

I haven't tried Zaino stuff yet, but I've heard really geat things about it, so I'll probably try it sometime this spring if it ever decides to stop freakin' snowing.

[navybluese00]

Good luck waiting for the snow to end. Here we are almost in the middle of April, and NYC just had 6.5 inches on Monday. Damn!!!! My Zaino was just delivered, and I'm not gonna get to do my spring cleanup I've been waiting to do. Zaino is truly great stuff. I started using it last year, and I really like it. Their brand of swirl and scratch removing polish really helped. My GA is dark blue, which is a really hard color to keep glossy and scratch free. Zaino really worked well on it.