Scratch removal question

[f4igrad]

Hey folks

I am new to all of this, and I have done some searches but still haven`t been able to find a good answer to my problem. I have a black 2001 Pathfinder that has some paint problems due to the previous owner. I think they took it off road a bit. I have some scratches that are white, but don`t seem to be too terribly deep. I can run my nail across them and it doesn`t really catch or make a sound. I have a cheapo orbital buffer and I bought some Turtle Wax light duty polishing compound and some heavy duty polishing compound. I also have some swirl remover. I have been working on these scratches for a while, but even after putting the heavy duty polishing compound on the orbital buffer and working on the scratches for a solid 5 - 10 minutes, they are still there (although much less noticeable). Any suggestions on what I can try next to remove the scratches? I don`t want to do anything that will mess up the paint and require paying $$$ to an auto body place to get it looking good again. Maybe I need to try wet sanding next??

[scottabir]

I dont think you need to wetsand them. What kind of orbital are you using? The ones from sears type where you put a terry bonnet over a foam pad?

I fear that if you wetsand and try to remove the marks with your orbital machine they will not come out too well. I have not tried the TW polishes so in that respect I cant tell you how abrasive they are and what they are capabale of doing.

If *I* was in your shoes I would take a look at the PC, Cyclo, Dewalt D/A machines with some good foam pads.



I dont know your budget or if you want to spend the money buying equipment and polishes ect.



But a quality D/A machine is a great place to start. and well worth the money spent for the use you can get out of them for the future.

[f4igrad]

thanks for your reply

i have a 6" Coleman orbital buffer from Wally World. It came with 2 pads for it, a polishing one and a buffing one. I have read all about the PC polisher/etc. and they appear to be amazing machines. I am not yet prepared to make that type of investment though, my Pathfinder is a workhorse and I am not as concerned about the paint on it as I would be on a new sports car. These scratches just bother me because they are on my driver door and I see them every day when i get in and out of the vehicle. I was hoping there would be some product I could use to get rid of them or at least reduce their visibility.

[JeffM]

Throw the Turtle wax polishes out immediatly. They will ruin your paint.



The one that says compound is actually like a paste of sandpaper.



What i would do is get some cloth applicator pads and some scratchX by Meguiars and work these areas with that.



While your at it, buy Clay Magic clay kit and do that too.



You can get good results using ColorX and follow that up with something like NXT.



If you are serious goto lowes and buy a PC 7336 and order some pads and a backing plate from Autopia car care.

[Accumulator]

f4igrad- Welcome to Autopia!



As mentioned, you really can do much better than the Turtle Wax products. You don`t *really* need a polisher to do this work, especially since you`re primarily concerned with a limited area (the door).



I have friends who have similar "work truck" situations and they get by just fine with a few good products.



I think I`ll leave product suggestions to others, at least for now, though there are some good choices available if you`re willing to buy online or over the phone. Tell me this- are you willing to spend maybe $50 on products? If not, what`s the upper limit you`ll consider? Are you willing to order some products or do you need to get them locally?



Don`t consider wetsanding. It`s something best left to those with considerable experience. *VERY* easy to do severe damage.



Just how successful you`ll be will depend on how severe the scratches are and how hard your paint is; sometimes something that doesn`t *look* all that bad is too deep to safely remove, and sometimes something that looks awful can be easily (and safely) remedied. Just as an example, if you *could* catch your nail on the scratches they`d really be too deep for safe removal. If you take off too much clearcoat it will fail and have to be repainted. You can generally take off no more than .0003" ("three tenths of a mil"). And that`s over the entire life of the paintjob.



FWIW, 5-10 minutes isn`t really very long for what you`re trying to accomplish, especially by hand. Heh heh, sorry if that`s sorta discouraging.

[f4igrad]

thanks again

I used the orbital buffer with the heavy compound on it for 10 minutes and it didn`t really remove the scratches...that is what I was referring to. I would like to purchase the products locally...maybe I can purchase the Scratch X next and see how that does? I guess I will nix the wetsanding idea, I saw a post on it and thought it was somewhat common, though I guess not. Thanks again for all of the advice!