Well it finally happened : I live in an aparment where they have the little wooden "security" arms. A lot of times this arm is stuck in the up/open position even after the car in front has gone through. Well I drive up to it tonight and it's in the up position, so I decide to drive through. As I drive through, I hear a thud and rubbing. Nothing I could really do at that point, so I pull through. I get out of the car and inspect the damage and noticed from the A pillar to the C pillar on the passenger side where the door meets the roof, it looks like it scratched or left white paint. It's dark outside at the moment, so I can't tell.

I ran my finger over it, but couldn't really feel anything like any deep scratch or gouge. I thought it was a long clearcoat scratch, but I tried the old "spit and rub" detailing job and it's still there.

Is there anything simple that can be done for scratches like this. Maybe a detail shop can buff it out? It almost looks like the paint from the gate arm rubbed off on the car and won't come off, but I'm not sure. Oh, and of course it's a black car.

And here I was just about 2 months away from moving into a house...

 

Try a claybar.

Mike

 

Ya know, I have a clay bar... do I just use the clay bar or do I need to put anything like any kind of lubricant on it before I clay? I've clayed it in the past with Zaino to remove crap - but used their car wash solution as lubricant.

Thanks for the advice - hope it works.

 

Try some rubbing compound too. Sometimes the gentle grit will take out those surface defects.

 

Yes, you still need to use a lubricant. I was successful in using a claybar to remove plastic and paint rubbed onto my car by a moron in a Mercedes.

Mike

 

Well that wasn't working too well, so I said what the hell and figured I'd work on it more this weekend. I did manage to conclude that it wasn't a scract - even the clear coat was intact. It was just paint from the gate arm that had "become one" with my car's paint.

I took the car to the dealer to get my brakes/rotors checked out. In the meantime, I pointed out the long paint/scratch mark. He took some brake cleaner and a cloth and the stuff just wiped off leaving the normal paint intact. I mean, I spent about 30 minutes at midnight trying to scrub this paint from the gate arm off. He took about 30 seconds and the stuff just wiped off. He said it happens all the time and people are amazed how easily it's removed after they've spent a ton of effort trying to get it off themselves.

Oh well... there you go for future reference for anyone else that may have a similar problem in the future.