MINI COOPER :: North American Motoring - Question

thewebgeek · #1 09-02-2009, 10:48 AM

Last weekend while traveling down the highway, a hawk swooped out of the sky into the grass in the median, then almost immediately flew right into the road in front of my car. I swerved and avoided a dead-center windshield impact, but unfortunately, it impacted my car windshield on the lower passenger side.

On a positive note, it did not crack the windshield.

The bad part is that is rode up the passenger side of the hood before it hit the windshield. The metal trim ring on the hood has some small dents in it, and there are some long scratches starting just above the headlight all the way up.

The trim ring for the hood is only a $25 part which isn't bad, so I've got that taken care of.

My question is about getting the scratches out.

The scraches are very light and increase in depth the farther up the hood they go. As far as I can tell, they are not through the paint. I tried to take some pictures, but my car is so blindingly shiney

that the scratches don't show up.

I have currently at my disposal the following items:
PC Polisher w/ assortment of pads
Most Prima products... Swirl, Amigo, Epic etc....

Up to this point, I haven't had to take any scratches like this out of the paint. I've simply had to do upkeep type of paint work. I am looking for some guidance on how to best proceed. What I should be looking for, how to step things up to get the deeper scratches smoothed out, what products to use, etc...

Any help is appreciated!

kenchan · #2 09-02-2009, 11:40 AM

mask off the areas you dont need to polish... no you dont need to mask your tires.

i'd break out your pc, use your medium density pad, and Swril. go at it. do the lighter scratch first to get the feel.

the deeper one can take a while. use a fimer pad and a tad more emph with 1-2 higher speed.

remove masking tape.

use some Swirl to kinda blend the surrounding area by using lower speed and lighter pressure.

wash the car.

Amigo the entire car (including your tires

) and
Epic. done.

**BlimeyCabrio** · #3 09-02-2009, 11:42 AM

It's 100% dependent on how deep the scratches are. You say they don't appear to be "through the paint". Are they through the clearcoat? Or just in the clearcoat? Are they deep enough that you can you catch your fingernail in them?

If they're in the clearcoat and not deep, then normal polishing *may* minimize them enough to make them nearly invisible - doesn't eliminate the scratches, but polishes the edges of the scratches to make them "blend". Doing spot-polishing just on the scratch using ScratchX or a similar product and a hand applicator may be a lot faster than using the PC for this type of work.

If they're a little deeper, it may require more aggressive polishing (e.g. with a rotary) to minimize them.

If they're even deeper (but still in the clearcoat only) then wetsanding may be in order. CAREFUL. I've done this with good results on my MINI. I've also wetsanded all they way to the color coat on our minivan (ouch). Not something I recommend unless you have something you don't care about to practice on and learn on.

If they're even deeper, you may need to add some clearcoat (or base coat, if they're through the paint) and then knock it back down with wetsanding or rotary.

But OctaneGuy is the expert. I just regurgitate what he's taught me, mostly.

But I'd start with ScratchX by hand - then work up in aggressiveness. Polish and rewax as ken suggests after the scratches are taken care of...

**OctaneGuy** · #4 09-02-2009, 03:08 PM

Man that reply was good! I'm speechless. About all I can say is
+1??

One thing is that if the OP can't photograph it because his car is too shiny, just how visible are these scratches?

One way I photograph hard to capture defects is in a dark room. Place a single light source near the scratch, turn the flash off, and shoot it. Helps to have a tripod to prevent the images from being blurry due to the longer exposure. It's a lot of work, but it makes it possible to capture them without the light reflecting or blowing out the defect.

Course not being able to see a defect like that might also be a hint that you don't need to do much to make it even less visible??

Richard

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlimeyCabrio