Wax recommendation

[Tel]

I believe my FType has had some sort of ceramic coating applied by the previous owner.

Where I live in Kent it is almost impossible to avoid picking up hedge scratches on country roads. So the nearside has accumulated a lot of these, one in particular shows up pretty bad after a wash, right along the nearside.

I had been reading up on and considering a new cermamic coating. But I think it very likely that after having this done I would accumulate more scratches and soon be back to square one.

So I have concluded to just look after the nearside with wax after washing, and only in the scratched areas.

I'd like to preserve the remaining ceramic coating on the nearside as far as possible. So can anybody recommend a wax or other product that will resolve these scratches cosmetically (well..until the next wash) but without being so abbrasive as to damage or remove the remainder of the ceramic coating ?

It would help a great help if you could take some photos in the light along and perpendicular to the panels.

Until we fully understand what you are seeing, it's nigh impossible to give feedback that's of use, we're plucking at straws.

 

[Pilot Pete]

I know it is a year on since the question was posed, but it won’t be a bad thing for others searching in the future to see/ hear solutions. My car had a wavy scratch along the wing just above the side vent when I bought it earlier in the year. It had gone through the clear and the base coat (just) in places so was particularly visible.

Now, I’m no bodywork expert, but did grow up dabbling at repairs helping at my local garage in my early twenties.

The solution I used was to buy a matched touch up paint and clear coat. With an extremely fine artists brush (bought a set online for less than a tenner) I applied the base colour the full length of the scratch. After that was dry I then repeated with the clear coat. This time making sure I completely filled (and a bit more) the scratch so it was ever so slightly raised above the surrounding paintwork.

I left this to cure for a week or so before setting to with 2500grit followed by 3000grit wet and dry on a small rubbing block. This was done after soaking in a small bucket of very soapy suds and using liberal amounts of the suds to lubricate the rubbing.

This took the high spots of the fresh clear coat back to the same height as the surrounding paintwork and left the scratch and a small area either side of the scratch matched, but dull.

The next phase was to get out the DA polisher and polish back to a high shine with Hexlogic yellow pad and Menzerna 2500 polish - I had also done a load of stone chips using the same method and then fully decontaminated the whole car as I was planning to machine polish the whole thing.

After that it is simply a case of reapplying your choice of LSP be it ceramic coat, wax etc.

Hard to get photos outside in sunlight which showed the scratch just using my phone, but you can see it if you zoom in - here is the scratch (the dark wavy line), then after applying clear (which you can clearly see looks a mess!), and then the wing once sanded/ polished and waxed.