Fine scratches after 3 step system

[ucr996]

I just finished putting on the Gold Class 3 step system last night and I still have a few light scrathes in the clear coat. The car is a 2000 Porsche 996 in silver but has very low milage on the car so the paint is in great shape !! Should I apply another coat of step three or strip it down again or live with it ????

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Fine scratches after 3 step system

Originally posted by ucr996
I just finished putting on the Gold Class 3 step system last night and I still have a few light scratches in the clear coat. The car is a 2000 Porsche 996 in silver but has very low mileage on the car so the paint is in great shape !! Should I apply another coat of step three or strip it down again or live with it ????

Hi ucr996,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

If you want to remove the scratches you'll need to remove the paint around the scratches and this will mean using a product like ScratchX by hand or a cleaner/polish by machine.

Hang on and I'll add some more information...

[Mike Phillips]

What it means to remove a scratch out of anything...


In order to remove a scratch out of anything, metal, plastic glass, paint, etc. You must remove material around the scratch until the surface is level or equal to the lowest depths of the scratch or scratches.

The below diagram if for paint, the the same thing applies to just about an surface material or coating.



In essences, you don't really remove a scratch, you remove material around a scratch.

Then the big question is, is the material or coating workable, as in can you abrade small particles of it and leave behind an original looking surface. For example, some things you can abrade, (remove the scratch), but you can never completely remove all of your abrading marks, thus you can't really fix the problem, all you can do is exchange one set of scratches of a different set of scratches.

The next questions is, how thick is the surface material you're working on or the coating. You are limited to what you can do by the thickness of these to things, (surface coating or surface material), and whether or not this surface is workable.

Sometimes you don't know what you can so until you try. It's always a good idea to test your choice of products, applicator materials and application process, (By hand or by machine), to an inconspicuous area. If you cannot make a small area look good with your product, applicator and process, you will not be able to make the entire surface look good. It's always a good idea to test first and error on the side of caution, versus make a mistake you cannot undo.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Fine scratches after 3 step system

Originally posted by ucr996
Should I apply another coat of step three or strip it down again or live with it ????

That's kind of up to you. Removing scratches out of clear coat finishes tends to require a little effort on your part and on silver basecoat/clearcoat finishes they don't show up to readily.

The fastest and easiest way to remove the scratches would be to step up to machine polishing with a dual action polisher.

[qh187]

Kinda related...Does step 1 remove all traces of the previous waxing if I don't claybar?

[BigLeegr]

Originally posted by qh187
Kinda related...Does step 1 remove all traces of the previous waxing if I don't claybar?

Pretty much. (If you use it as intended. If you just wiped on/off, you may still have some remnants of wax left, but it wouldn't be pretty.)

[miked2]

Here's my approach -- DC1 with a PC. If there are any scratches left, then I use ScratchX by hand. ScratchX works wonders, but it is a time-consuming process.