I have quite a few scratches in my paint. I think rubbing compound would work pretty good, but won't that damage what's left of my clear coat? I don't want that to happen, although my front fenders never even got a clear coat when I put them on. I've tried clear-coat safe scratch removers, and they make the scratches look not as bad, but they don't help enough. By the way, the paint is the original factory paint except for the fenders.

Some of my black trim is faded and scraped and I was thinking of painting everything again, but I heard about back to black wipe on stuff that works pretty good. I'm going to try that and see if it helps almost as much, but would it hurt the paint if I got a little on it and wiped it off quick? If it would, I'll probably have to tape off the paint so I can go right to the edge of the trim. And I'm assuming it wouldn't do anything to the glass if I wiped it off right? Also I'm probably havin my black bumpers painted sometime soon, so should I still use this stuff on them for now or will it make them harder to paint later?


[Modified by OldSchoolHatch, 5:33 PM 5/18/2002]

 

wash ur car, put touch up, then use rubbing compound, wait 24 hours, then use Mothers 3 stage wax kit, I SWEAR LOOKS! LIKE U NEVER HAD A SCRATCH THEN!

 

The scratches all depend on how deep they are. It'd probably be worth the $75 to go to a detail shop and have them compound and buff the car out. Depending on the year of your car, it may not have been clear coated from the factory. Only metallics were base/clear in the late 80's and early 90's. As far as the moldings, Back to Black works for about a day. It's great for shows, but not to restore the original black. Go to an automotive paint supplier in your area and get "bumper black" in a spray bomb. Anything that is black on your car can be painted with this (bumper moldings, belt moldings, bodyside moldings, etc. Be sure to wipe them off first with wax and grease remover, especially if you put back to black on them b4. Hope this helps!

 

I have a 91 red HB, and I'm pretty sure it originally had a clear coat. Isn't there a good way to repair the scratches myself?

The reason I wanted to use the black magic back to black is because it would be a real project to spraypaint everything, like the window trim and side moldings. I know it's really hard to get those side moldings back on the car the way they were so I'd have to tape off everything or somethin.