Re: keeping the exterior pristine

["R. Shayne Pavlic'" <bcpi@arias.net>]

>Some lovely, probably a child that plays on my circle put chewing gum on my
>passenger side door. Any suggestions for getting it off? Also, I myself placed
>a bag on my car the other day (what was I thinking)? and when I removed it
>found that something in the bag had scratched the surface of the hood. I tried
>that J-28 or whatever its called and wax, but its still there. It seems to
>have scratched the clear coat. Help please before I cry!
>
>Dee
>95A6q pearl
>


Here are some suggestions that I have used for years and seem to fix 90% of
all scratches as long as the have not gone through the CC.  Dee, go to the
auto paint store (or auto store, but the auto paint store folks are more
knowledge able) and get yourself a mild/medium abrasive type cleaner/scratch
remover wax.  As the counter folks for a suggestion on what works well. 
Then, get a could deoxidizer wax and finally a finish wax (a good carnuba
seems to work well).  After you get the stuff go home and wash your car
(hint, put about 1 tsp of cooking oil in about 3 gallons of water.  Helps to
keep dust and dirt from scratching you car).  Dry it and follow the
directions on the most abrasive wax.  Rub over the scratch lightly in a
circular motion going several inches over the scratch in all directions. 
Don't go to far over the scratch as you don't want to remove more wax and CC
then you have to.  If the scratch is really bad you may have to do this
several times.  Just remember to do everything steadily and gentily.  A
little muscle is good, more is not better.  After you are done with this
first product, go to your less abrasive deoxider wax and do several
applications of this.  Finally a couple applications of the finishing wax
and the surface scratches should be gone.  To do one scratched area takes
time and patience.  Don't rush and don't push to hard.

As for the gum, I one day had something stuck to my car and could not get it
off.  I hesitantly used WD-40.  It came right off.  Sprayed it, let it soak
then gently cleaned it off.  After that I followed up with a couple coats of
the finish wax, and if light scratches are seen, you may want to polish it
first with the deoxidizing wax.  I will warn you I did use the WD hesitantly
because I did not know what it would do to the paint.  I have used it one 1
or 2 other cars since then with no problems, but you may want to try if
first in an unseen area.


Hope some of this helps and if you have other questions, just ask.


Shayne.