HELP, what did I do wrong?

[Chris S]

OK, I was finally able to wash my newly purchased 98 BMW M3 recently (due to the lifting of drought restrictions in my area). I'm not a newbie to washing and detailing really, and have always been particularly careful, or so I thought.

I ended up with some long, light scratches in the surface, primarily on the trunk lid, and a few on the passenger quarter panel.

Here was what i did overall... Tell me where I went wrong please...

I used two buckets, one for rinsing and oine for soaping. Two wash mitts, one for above the moldings, and one for below and for the bumpers. I rinsed very frequently. I washed with what I thought was pretty light pressure, if any. No scrubing, persay. I dried by sheeting the water off with the hose with no nozzle on it. The used 100% cotton towels and dabbed with chamois.

Where did I go wrong here... I'm was so upset to see these marks the next day, I KNOW they weren't there before... and now, how do I get rid of them? I haven't attempted anything yet.

[CharlesW]

First off, maybe you didn't do it. The car may have had a glaze on it that filled the scratches and you just washed it off. 3M IHG is one product that makes a finish look great but really has no durability. Someone posted about directional use of their car washing products. In other words, wash one direction, dry at 90 degrees to that. Apply wax or polish in one direction, remove at 90 degrees. He said he then could tell when he was causing any damage to his finish. Makes sense to me. I have done this for years with windows. Was the outside vertically and the inside horizontally. Lets you know where the streaks are.

Charles

[blackrex]

Either something got caught in your wash mit and didn't come out when you rinsed or the scratches were already there just covered by a polish or glaze that washed off. My bets on the second. I've had excellent results removing light surface scratches/marks from BMWs using zymols hd-cleanse. If that doesn't work I would step up to 3m SMR.