Horrible paint imperfections, please help

[Nitrosport]

Hello

I have a jet black BMW that has tons of paint imperfections. I'm hoping you guys can tell me exactly what products and what process to use to repair as much of this as possible. Below are images of some of the imperfections but the whole car has them.

Ignore the white speckles as they are just dust from being in the garage for about a week. It's difficult to see on camera, but I have swirl marks everywhere as well as these lines going up and down the hood and side of the car in certain areas. It looks like someone was washing the car with a dirty sponge in an up and down motion. I also have alot of scratches as you can see in the second picture. They are not deep and you can run your finger nail over them without it hooking on them. They seem to be very light and in the clear coat.

[Mike Goodrum]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Alright, your days of horrible paint imperfections and lack of mirror shine and liquid wet paint is over!

1.WASH- Thorough wash I mean thorough. We want this baby squeaky clean. ( Also see the forums 5 step wash and care cycle for maintaining this beauty after we are done)
2. CLAYING-Did I mention squeaky clean? Yes clay it! If the paint seems rough and gritty you will most likely need a good clay job. Meg's sells a Clay Kit containing 2x Clay Bars 1x Quik Detailer (Lubrication) and 1x Microfiber towel. Go over it very closely and thoroughly I bet you'll notice a huge difference in just this one step.
3. POLISH/COMPOUND-Paint cleaner and polish... Remember least aggressive method and continue if you do not find success with one. Swirl X, Scratch X, Ultimate Compound. Depending on the hardness of the paint will be your cue on what to use. You can apply by hand (Foam/ Microfiber Applicator pad with "a lot of passion") or by machine (Dual Action Polisher, PC, and if experienced High Speed!!!)
4.WAX- Now that we will most likely have gotten all of our swirls and imperfections out we move onto protecting the paint! Wax, Glazes for extra depth.

I only scratched the surface on just basically your steps and a little on what to do and use. There are many talented guys on this forum that will give you your pointers on technique and any other questions you may have.

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Ok, I went out and bought some stuff. I got Meguiars gold class carnauba plus liquid wax, 2 bottles of Meguiars scratch x, Meguiars smooth surface clay kit, Meguiars gold class clear coat car wax, some terry cloths, and some foam applicators. Am I missing anything else?


I will wash my car tomorrow and start on this. Any other recommendations? I will be doing this all by hand as I don't want to destroy my paint using the machine.

[Shawn T.]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Microfibers, not terry towels, IMO.

[JLMex]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

MF towels... lots... of... them!
Terry towels come handy in time to time, but you don't want to use them to remove the wax/compounds, always use MF towels for that.

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

I'll pick some Microfiber cloths up tomorrow morning. Thanks for the heads up.

[Ravi_1992]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

My 01 Audi is the same as your beamer, go over the big scratches with your fingernail lighlty, the scratch will be too deep to fully remove safely if your nail catches the scratch. Im just letting you know so you dont kill ur self over not removing all the scratches, lol

[fzr confused]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

He already said that you can NOT catch a nail on the scratch....


Where in FL are you located? I'm near west palm.

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

I'm in Broward County.

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

The weather has been terrible the past couple of days in Florida. I washed my car the other day as planned but it rained. Then, to make things worse, my battery died. Now I have to take my car in to have the battery changed under warranty and rewash before I can get to the paint issues. I did get a chance to work on those bad scratches on the door and a few on the roof. I ended up wet sanding them with 3000 grit sand paper and then using compound and wax to remove them. I think they came out pretty good for my first time doing this. Here is a pic of the same area of the door. It's really dirty again but the scratches are gone :

[sontakke]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

How in the world did you end up using sandpaper even though it was never mentioned in any of the replies? Did you read this forum and decided on your own to jump on wet-sanding as a newbie?

- Vikas

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Well, I was trying to get them out using scratch x but they seemed to be a little too deep. I finally decided to try wet sanding and it worked. I was very careful and didn't sand to deep. I watched a bunch of videos on youtube first. The rest of the scratches and swirl marks will be treated with scratch x as they are not as bad as those few that were on the door.

[fzr confused]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Is that a after sand before compound pic? I'm on my phone so I can't see it perfectly, but it doesn't appear corrected.

[Nitrosport]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Thats after everything. If you look at the car, you can't see them anymore at all. The car is extremely dirty in the pic though.

[fzr confused]

Re: Horrible paint imperfections, please help

Maybe its just my phone but to me it appears to still have the sanding marks still there...I'll look on my comp later.