Baby did a bad, bad thing when washing his car.

Okay...

Please...listen to me. I've been detailing cars for 15 years...I'm very experienced and know what I am doing. Scratch-X is an abrasive polish...it does precisely what you are describing, the goal is to round off the edges of the scratches so that they don't reflect light in the same way, and hence become invisible. If you have hazing or dulling where you've used the Scratch-X, then you have not worked the product down enough or allowed the abrasives to diminish properly.

First of all, always buff parallel to the scratch, not perpendicular. You also don't want to use too much, you need to polish with the product until it diminishes completely beneath your towel, otherwise you will get that hazing you described.

I would recommend a cotton terry cloth towel for working the scratch-X in, and a good quality microfiber towel for buffing any residue off.

Bear in mind that the areas you use the polish on will need to be waxed again. I personally would (and do) work the polish into the areas of concern and then follow up by putting a coat of wax on the whole vehicle. Never wipe in a circular motion that creates swirls, always in straight lines.

You can probably achieve what you want with the Scratch-X, but if you don't use it properly then you can make the situation a lot worse...you can't really do anything that will permanently damage the paint without a machine...but you can create hazing and areas of more headache for yourself.

 

Because working parallel will even the edge out smoothly as opposed to chopping it up which can leave a wave or distortion behind.

The end result will be much better if you work it until its broken down. These products use diminishing abrasives. Think about sandpaper, you use finer and finer cuts of sandpaper as you finish a piece of wood to get that nice smooth finish. If you stop after the heavy grit paper it will be rough. These polishes break down as you work them in so that the abrasives are finer and finer, refining the finish until they are gone. When you just add more and wash/clay the excess away you never get to those finer abrasives and the result is not as smooth as it could be.

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these consumer products including Scratch X do have some glazes and fillers. So over time, those will wash away and the scratch may seem to "come back". Toyota paint is pretty soft making these spot polishes pretty effective, but on cars with harder paint you really would need a machine.

 

Its not a poor quality paint, its just soft. The bad thing about soft paint is it scratches easily...the good thing is its easy to correct.

 

I had a similar experience with Zaino Z-PC Fusion. It's a great paint cleanser, but sucks as a finishing polish and will leave behind a haze no matter how long you've worked the product down (at least by hand). It has no filler so the hazing gets pretty bad. Zaino says to apply Z2 or Z5 over it to make the hazing/dulling go away, but this doesn't do jack squat (and unfortunately Zaino doesn't have a suitable product that falls between Z-PC Fusion and Z-AIO). I went out and bought a better finishing polish and it took the hazing right out.

Another product (albeit weaker) that you might want to try first instead of Scratch-X or Z-PC Fusion is NuFinish Scratch Doctor, which I've found doesn't induce hazing. If that fails then you can move to Scratch-X or Z-PC Fusion and finish with a better polish.

 

Yeah sanding is a pro-only process IMHO...

 

If you want to clean it up a little more after the Scratch X, you can try some Mequiars Ultimate Compound. It's pretty light duty and you shouldn't damage anything with it. That should remove any haziness from the scratchX use. Then follow with a good sealant or polish, as SW03 mentioned.

The only problem is, you'll have that one really nice area and the rest of the car will be 'hazier'.

REV

 

If he works the ScratchX in until the abrasives break down he shouldn't have any hazing...

 

Ouch...

 

I accidentally put some swirls into my hood while trying to clean-up the area around my paint touch-up.

An LC orange pad with Meguiars M105 with a Flex 3401XRG and several passes cleaned it up. A few more passes with a LC white pad and Meguiars M205 made it look perfect again.

As others have said, the paint on this car is on the softer side. I have the exact same color as you. And luckily, it is very easy to correct with the proper tools, pads and polish.

 

Have you tried the Microfiber Paint Correction Kit?

 

I would if I could find someone to buy the Flex and LC pads from me.

MB860 ?