removing light scratches on newly polished paint

Last week I bought a black 1997 Ford F150, and the week before I bought it, the seller had it detailed, and it came out perfect. A few days after I bought it, I took it to my mechanic to have some minor repairs, and they did me the "favor" of washing it, and I don`t know what they used, but now there are light swirl scratches on the sides and tailgate.

What can I use to go over these and either get rid of them or minimize them that would be fairly quick & easy. Keep in mind that I`m starting from ground zero-as of yet I don`t own any tools or chemicals, and not much know-how....yet! I`m trying to avoid doing a complete job, at least until the weather turns a little better. There Pacific Northwest winters make you want to just stay inside!

Welcome to DC. If you think the truck will be protected enough, wait until the weather warms up a little. In the mean time, read read and read. There is a wealth of info that you should read about before hand. A member here, jngrbrdman, made a site that will be very useful for you:
http://ocdetails.com/html/basic_detailing.html
Read that and search around here for the rest of your answers.

Thanks for the reply and the link, budman. I`m pretty sure the paint is protected, it just looks bad, and it`s on driver`s side, so I have to look at it every time I get in (amazingly enough, they managed to not touch the hood and front panels!)

Here`s to waitnig for the spring! :beer_smil

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Originally Posted by Phideaux

Last week I bought a black 1997 Ford F150, and the week before I bought it, the seller had it detailed, and it came out perfect. A few days after I bought it, I took it to my mechanic to have some minor repairs, and they did me the "favor" of washing it, and I don`t know what they used, but now there are light swirl scratches on the sides and tailgate.

What can I use to go over these and either get rid of them or minimize them that would be fairly quick & easy. Keep in mind that I`m starting from ground zero-as of yet I don`t own any tools or chemicals, and not much know-how....yet! I`m trying to avoid doing a complete job, at least until the weather turns a little better. There Pacific Northwest winters make you want to just stay inside!

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Welcome to the site something that comes to mind for me is when the truck was detailed, maybe the detailer used a filler wax and when it was washed some of the filler came off and that`s the scratches/swirls you are seeing...Some detailers use wax like this to mask the swirls giving the customer a false seen that the swirls are gone....I`m also not saying that `s what he did, that just comes to mind based on what you described...I would think that you are good for a while on protection so not to worry to much until better weather

you can go to an auto parts store and pick up a tube of Meguiars Scratch X .

What if the weather is nice he still has to get rid of scratches in his fresh paint. Or should he just wait period?

It`s not fresh paint- it`s on a 97 F150 that was just detailed. I would look into OTC polishes to work by hand unless you are thinking of getting into detailing a lot then I would suggest buying a Porter Cable dual action polisher. But your best bet would probably be using Scratch X by meguiars on the spots that have the swirls. I believe that the Scratch X also offers some protection aswell.

Yep, like its been said, Scratch X will most likely solve your problem.

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Originally Posted by budman3

It`s not fresh paint- it`s on a 97 F150 that was just detailed. I would look into OTC polishes to work by hand unless you are thinking of getting into detailing a lot then I would suggest buying a Porter Cable dual action polisher. But your best bet would probably be using Scratch X by meguiars on the spots that have the swirls. I believe that the Scratch X also offers some protection aswell.

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Yeah, I`ll try the Scratch X for now, then later on this spring I`ll pick up a polisher and some other products and do it up right. I`ve already got my next quarterly bonus spent!

I would get poorboys SSR1 for just the light scratches the ssr series goes up to a level three which is for very heavy scratches. apply it with a biffer and that shld take care of your problem


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