So I went to a car wash (not automated, but just to use the equipment) and long story short a hose from their shitty equipment fell on my hood. I couldn't take a look at it until this morning, but of course there are scratches in my hood. So what I discovered is that although everyone likes to make the "you can buff it out" joke, actually nobody really knows how to buff out anything from a car, which is pretty pathetic. So does anyone actually know how to buff out scratches from paint? Note: I'm not interested in buying orbital polishers and that wouldn't work anyways because my car is parked out on the street, so I would need like a 50 foot extension cord for that.

The closest thing I found was on the Turtle Wax site, where they advertise a compound that you can polish in by hand to remove scratches. The only reason I'm hesitant about using it is that I have no idea if that's how you buff out scratches. Like there are a bunch of videos on YouTube and people are like "oh, this is easy, just take this sand paper and start rubbing it on your car." And I understand the concept of slowly sanding down the clear coat so that the scratch is level, but I'm not putting sand paper on my new car. So the compound seems much more acceptable to me, but I don't know if it's legit.

Thanks.

 

your hand cant possibly hit the required RPM's to remove a scratch from the clear coat. because essentially the scratch is in the clear coat and to remove the scratch you have to remove microns of clear coat.

 

you can wet sand, like the youtube videos suggest, but you're actually TAKING off the clear coat or removing parts of the clear coat with that method.

the best way is to get a random orbital machine, like the porter cable 7424 which is foolproof, it wont burn through paint..
you dont have to buy one; you can borrow one, rent one. if available to you.

 

That's why I'm semi-dubious about this Turtle Wax product. They say it's a scratch removal product that you can polish in by hand. I guess I'll just take it to an auto body shop. I don't have the time to figure out how to do this on my own. Thanks, however.

 

right, it's marketing. it's called a "filler wax" which will fill in the scratch with product.

 

sorry for your brand new car,

it would make me sad/frustrated to see someone do that to the brand new RDX

 

Thanks. It was my own fault, technically. The hose was on a boom and I didn't notice that the boom was short, so when I rotated it, the hose fell. I just called a body shop and they said if I can feel the scratch (which I can), they'd have to repaint the hood. I'm sure that's not actually the case, but I also sort of don't care at this point, I'll just get it repainted.

 

instead of painting it, call a detailer...to "random orbit" that shit out.

the auto body shop thinks you are a sucker and is willing to shell out thousands to repaint the hood.

 

I think it's more like hundreds, but the problem is I'm not a big auto guy. So while I get that an auto body shop will rip me off, I'm also wary of a detailer who will just do a half-ass job, like how on YouTube people make videos where they say "if you spray WD40 on a scratch, you're good to go!" If this was an older car, I'd do it. But since it's new, I'll just get ripped off.