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There is a ton of different information online about what to do for scratches and swirls in the paint job.  My car has a couple of minor scratches and a small area on my hood with mild swirls, where someone tried to buff out some blemishes.  (I bought the car used).  I don't want to use anything that would damage or worsen my car's finish.  It's a 2011, still fairly new.  The paint color is azurite blue pearl, and it shows everything.  Just wondered if anybody else had tried any products for these issues or found something that works well.

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Meguiars Swirl-X works well to cover the swirls temporarily. If you combine that with a dual action or orbital buffer you can reduce their appearance greatly. Top off with a good coat of wax and you'll have a hard time seeing any swirls for about one to three weeks, depending on how often you wash your car, and what method of washing you use.

 

Getting rid of them entirely is tricky. A good detailer can make them disappear when viewed at the angles from which you will typically look at the car. But without just the right touch, getting rid of one set of swirls can lead to another.

 

Most minor scratches will be disguised by a coat of good wax. If you can not feel the scratches with your fingernail, more than likely it's just a surface scuff and can be buffed away with a dual action or orbital buffer using a mild compound. Which will then need to be followed with swirl remover.

 

If your fingernail catches lightly on the scratch, it may be shallow enough to wet-sand out. Wet sanding is tricky, and on most cars the clearcoat is not very thick, so wet sanding can quickly lead to a dull spot where the paint is exposed with no clear coat. You're better off in these situations to leave the scratch as-is. Use a compound to lightly buff the scratch, and follow with swirl remover and wax. Done properly the compounding will remove the "white" from the scratch, and make it much less visible.

 

 

A detailers trick for "removing" deeper scratches is to wipe it with acetone, apply clearcoat with a toothpick to the scratch, then again wipe with acetone after the clear has dried. Later this will be followed by sanding with a very high grit sanding sheet such as Trizact, then compound and swirl removal.

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What do you mean by "compound"?  I do that then Swirl-X then wax?  The scratches/swirls on my car are not deep at all, and only visible from angles in the light.  They are circular, like someone tried to wipe something into the small blemishes that are there (small dots that are lighter than the rest of the paint, maybe mild scuffs).  My car is a 2011 and very new-looking, all I'm looking for is a gentle kind of treatment that will make it look better.

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Compound is just an abrasive polishing agent. Either in liquid or paste form.

There are many different flavors, from heavy cut to fine finish compound, and the proper one to use depends on what you want to do and how quickly you want it done. Compound basically removes or smudges around the very top of a layer of paint or clearcoat where most minor surface imperfections are. Spider webbing, swirling, orange peel, light scratches.

 

For your uses you probably just want to stick with a basic paste type rubbing compound such as the kind made by Turtle wax. Its fairly light compound which means it will remove minor markings and scuffs without causing too much swirling, and is easy to use by hand.

 

 

What you may be seeing is the effect of someone using a heavy compound or a dirty or rough cloth to try to get the specks off.

 

Try the swirl-x first, and use a clean new micro-fiber towel to try to rub out the marks.

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