Polishing compound left marks...

Hello,
I recently used a polishing compound to remove minor scratches from
the car. Now, after 2 weeks I noticed huge whiteish circular marks
on the front bumper that the cloth left as I was applying the compound.
I think that I forgot to remove the compound from this area and it dried
on the paint.
The problem is that the marks don't go away, I tried using alcohol and
polishing(again) but it doesn't have any effect whatsoever.

Any ideas?

BTW It's a 97 LHS forrest green and the while circular strokes really
stand out

 

Go to the following website:

http://www.meguiars.com/

And click on the link titled "Video Center" and select the free car care
video that
explains how to correct this, then download it and watch it.

Ted

 

Hmm, I don't see anything removing polishing compund leftovers, only swirl marks.

 

3m sells a hand glaze that works wonders for removing swirls/damage and works great on all sorts of issues
and will double the luster in the paint if you have the time to rub the whole car by hand then waxing

 

NEVER use any kind of compound on a vehicle finished with clear coat paint.
You have fogged (scratched) the clear coat. Your only re-course is to
continue to polish (with less gritty products) the area until the micro
scratches are gone. And hope that you don't break through to the color
coat.

Good Luck....

 

Sounds like you are ready for another Car. Good Luck.

 

haven't been to any bodyshops in the last 10 years?????

 

Hate to break it to you but there isn't any polishing compound there. The
whiteish
marks are scratches and possibly acidic etching (you didn't say what
compound you used and how harsh it was, etc.)

The advice given for swirl marks (use a glaze) is what you follow for your
problem. Unfortunately, with paint, unless you repaint it, none of the
car-care
products (glaze, etc) will put back missing clearcoat or color coat
material.
All they basically do is either fill up the scratches with wax or
wax-polymer
compound (which will wash out eventually) to bring the scratch up to the
level of the rest of the remaining paint or clear coat, or they grind down
the
paint or clear coat around the scratch to bring it down to the level of the
bottom
of the scratch. The result is a flat smooth surface which gives the
reflective
shiny wet look people want to see.

Today's car finishes are not nearly as hard as paint jobs in bygone years.
This is
the result of people wanting a more shiny wet look than cars used to have,
and
the result of the EPA and such trying to get paint manufacturers and auto
painters
to reformulate and change application procedures so as to minimize the
release
of fumes from the paint. As a result they scratch more easily, and get
damaged by
bird shit and bugs and dust a lot easier. The best thing a car owner can do
to protect the paint is to wax the car often.

For scratches, the old school advice was to polish them out because years
ago,
car finishes were a lot thicker and often there was no clear coat used.
Today,
for scratches that don't completely penetrate the clear coat, it's best to
use a wax
or glaze that fills them up. Clear coats are vital to protecting the paint
from
sunlight and polishing them down thinner to get rid of a scratch is just
compromising the
color paint coat that much faster, in my opinion.

The only time in my opinion you should be using a polish is if the paint is
not clear
coated and it's so far gone that the top layer is dead - that whitish dusty
stuff. And
then you use it with a set of buffing wheels and you start with the most
abrasive
polish and use successively less abrasive polishes until the paint is shiny
again. Of
course, you have to keep in mind that after you do that, the paint is so
thin that
unless you wax it at least once a month, that the paint isn't going to last
more than
about 5-8 years.

Ted