Is there a type of polish I can use on the vehicle to remove swirl marks? The body shop/dealership apparently took my car through a car wash that touches it or buffed the car out; at night you can see swirl marks throughout the whole car very noticably, before I couldn't see any. It's a NBP (black).

Thanks for any input!

Dan

 

I had the same problem with my Anthracite '05 A-Spec, lots of swirl marks on the hood after the dealership's detailer cut polished the car to get some stubborn bird droppings off.

I ended up just hand waxing the car (with Meguiar's Gold Class Wax) again and the swirls were gone.

 

Yes, you can permanently remove swirl marks by polishing down the clearcoat, which removes the swirls from the paint. You can use a high speed sander tool or a dual action rotary tool (Porter Cable) with the right pads and chemicals (polish or rubbing compound) to do the job.

Wax will simply fill in the grooves in the clearcoat (which is what the swirls are) and will wash off after your next car wash.

Bear in mind that permanently removing swirls will thin your clearcoat by a little bit, but if you repeatedly polish the area out, you may one day burn through your clearcoat and end up with only your base coat. I did not once when I was naive and had no idea how to properly use rubbing compound!

 

Can body shops add extra layers of clearcoat? I'd be willing to just go to a competent body shop and have them take care of it.

There's an excellent body shop up here that I took my Honda's to many times and in all the times I had my cars worked on (hitting deer is a common thing in this area), which is probably close to 10 times over the last 8 years between my familys cars, the only problem I ever found in any of their work was not polishing the hood at the bottom enough... Never any overspray, never any specs in the paint, perfect blending, etc. The Acura body shop I've been going to, has been nothing but a nightmare; I'm tempted to just pay the body shop up here to fix the paint problems even though I shouldn't have to pay a dime, I just want the car looking like new. Instead it's looking like it's a used car with paint that's been repaired half-assed.

Acura's a higher end brand than Honda, and this car has been nothing but trouble in terms of paint appearance, thanks to the dealership and it's body shop. It's not Acura's fault, but I do believe that Acura could do a much better job of getting involved with issues like these. (the other issues were more serious; paint overspray, specs of dust in the paint, etc) I've let Acura Customer Care know of each of my five visits to the dealership and the trouble I've faced, but they say there isn't a thing they can do. I've told the dealership at this point I'd rather get rid of the car than keep it.

Dan

 

Yes, they can. But they would need to polish it to a fine shine after painting it on your car, but at least it would be consistent and your clearcoat would be thick enough to withstand some additional polishing in the years to come.

 

The Wash & Wax Forum will be the best place for your question as a lot of detail-oriented members hang there.