Piano black (?) exterior trim scratches

[squeak]

I've got some shiny black trim on my MX-5 RF on the roof and on the faux quarter windows that seem to get scratched if you even so much as look at the car. I'm guessing they are plastic. I had the entire car done with Opti-Coat Pro Plus when I first bought the car, but that hasn't helped keep these micro scratches from appearing out of nowhere.  Any recommendations on how to deal with them? I maintain the car myself using only Adam's products and use proper technique (at least, I think I'm doing everything right--I watched all the videos a bunch of times), but that trim is just messing with me.

 

Will Revive polish kill the Opti-Coat or make the scratches worse? I tried Brilliant Glaze to camouflage them but it didn't really seem to help. I'm a bit of a n00b so I haven't graduated to machine polishing yet. I'm also worried about overdoing it over time.

 

At this point, I'm taking the car back to the detailer to ask them to deal with it with it since I need to take it back to get them to fix a couple of hot spots caused by the Opticoat anyway, but long term, I'd love to figure out a way to deal with these scratches myself.

 

Thanks!

Edited August 9, 2017 by squeak

[ocdrifter]

A picture will help, in this situation, and if it's plastic I would polish the, out and then use Adams trim coating on them.

 

You said you are a noob, because you can't polish or use a machine?

 

My three year old can use a user friendly orbital...hint hint I don't have a tree year old but I know for a fact they are so simple you will kick your self for not using one earlier.

 

Just so you know opticoat in my opinion is ummmmm hog wash, doesn't last.

 

Good Luck!

Edited August 10, 2017 by ocdrifter

[BRZN]

Hi Michelle,

 

I'd check with the folks that applied the Coating to make sure they in fact did apply it to the areas you've mentioned. With a coating over the areas the scratches would be in the coating not the paint, or plastic. Unless they coated over with scratches left behind. If the coating is being scratched, you most likely have scratches everywhere due to something, or some procedure, and they're just not as visible in the paint as they are on the black (yet).

 

To remove coatings they need polished off, Revive is a hand Polish and will slowly remove the coating. I've not tried to use Revive, so I'm not sure how fast it would remove, or if it would marr the coating itself.

 

A glaze will fill minor scratches, hazing, swirls, and other types of marring, however not much, if anything, sticks very well to coatings, so Brilliant Glaze wouldn't be very beneficial.

 

As stated above, a picture would help tremendously.

[HydroBlueJK]

Those scratch no matter what you do, even the perfect wash method will still scratch them, Correct them and PPF them and your problem is solved

[squeak]

Apologies for the delayed reply, and thanks to everyone who has replied... My car was in the shop getting a rear fender panel repainted (again) after a valet driver backed him into a cement pillar (thankfully I had a dash cam to prove it was the parking company's fault)...

 

I've attached a photo of the sort of scratches I'm talking about. Please ignore the black arrows pointing to the two white stains. Those were for the benefit of the body shop that repainted the fender but created a few new problems for me, including those two white stains... nevermind the clearcoat they splashed and let dry on the panel above the one they painted so now it looks like dried nail polish, or the white spots of stuff that dried to the bumper... or the white stains they left on my black leather interior.. *sigh*

 

Anyway, as far as these scratches go, I'm hoping I can get away with hand polish, but before I go anywhere near those panels with anything abrasive like polish, I wanted to check in with the experts here on the best course of action?

 

I thought about PPFing them, but it's more than I want to spend right now (plus, aren't scratches in PPF noticeable, too?) if I can just easily polish them out every once in a while...

Edited August 18, 2017 by squeak

[mc2hill]

I would recommend polishing them with a fine polish.  

 

These are before and after pics from a BMW 335 MSport using this method.