[SCB]

Just got a Cooper (basic black) and only a week old and noticed small swirl scratches on the front wing, have paid to have Auto Glym life shine done, so should I seek dealer advice or is this normal for black paint?

Stevie

[ALD0]

It's more noticeable on Black cars unfortunately

[Dead Duck]

Pretty normal. You can't really avoid them 100%. Most of them occur during the washing/polishing process when grit gets caught between your sponge or cloth and your cars clear coat.

There are ways to minimise this in future - use a proper lambswool mitt to wash the car (grit sinks into the fibres) with two buckets of water (one for soap on, one for soap off). Alternatively get a 'grit guard' that sits in the bottom of your bucket and won't let your sponge/mitt get near the stuff that's sunk to the bottom (I'm sceptical of these).

Drying - use quality microfibre towels or an expensive proper chamois leather. However, I use an Autoglym synthetic one and it's excellent.

Polishing - use horizontal strokes to apply your chosen stuff. Boot, roof and bonnet from front of the car to the back. Car sides - up and down from roof to floor. Any scratching that does occur at this point will be less visible than your classic scratches that occur with circular motions.

To reduce the appearance of your swirls, use a quality paint cleaner or cleaner wax (Meguiars or Zymol), and finish off with a good wax like Meguiars NXT Tech Wax. Harsher polishes like ScratchX might be a bit much for your new finish at this point.

The only proper way to get rid of them completely is use a mechanical rotary buffer. They're a bit scary to use and I wouldn't recommend it if you've not got another vehicle to practice on first!

Another thing to do is to swot up on car care and understand what does what. There are a lot of people out there that think a polish and a wax is the same thing! This car care lark is a bit time consuming, but the results are very rewarding:

http://www.autopia-carcare.com/

...and while I'm here, here's my black ONE that I cleaned today...

http://www.mini2.com/forum/maintenance-mini-care/87355-meguiars-adventure-56k-get-broadband.html

[simeds]

my worst scratches are on the roof, most remember to run over all local cats before they decided to go sunbathing on my baby