I have one available to use and want to know if it is generally acceptable to go near a mini's beautiful exterior. also is there a buffing 101? I want to know more than I need to before I even attempt to do this. Any threads or helpful info would be appreciated. I have no desire to be one of those people that has to go to a body shop to fix a problem they've only made worse

 

Depending on what kind of scratches you're talking about, you may not have much luck if the buffer in question is a "random orbital" type. They're designed to be gentle on the paint and to make it almost impossible to "burn through" or damage the paint, but the tradeoff is that you can't really remove serious defects with them.

Serious scratches usually require some wet-sanding and followup with a rotary polisher/buffer (not a random orbital), but I would advise against using a rotary on a nice car if you don't have any experience. Use the wrong buffing compound with the wrong pad, or stay in one place too long, and you can literally find yourself looking at your car's primer coat wondering "what the hell just happened?"

 

Whatever you do, don't read this article if you want to know more:

http://www.caranddriver.com/features..._a_pro-gearbox


You will be educated with reckless advice that is sure to ruin your paint. I'm posting this to let you and others know in case you come across it..everything in this article is wrong and very bad advice. I've already let the C&D editors know about that.

 

Wow. That's all I can say about that article. "liquifiying the clear coat." Wow

 

LMAO, I just read that article last week and couldn't believe some of the info they gave.