So I go in to my enclosed portable (not really portable though) garage and I open the door of it and immediately I notice scratches ALL over the front left bumper of the car. Looks like something was drug across it. Most were at the end lip of the center (little to the left) and on the rounded lip of the top left side bumper. Like where it rounds up towards the light from the front. I also notice one long scratch about a foot long (easily seen clear as day) on my hood. Here's the thing though, they don't really look like scratches up close..but more of like something (plastic/rubbery) left a streak or something.

I'm pretty sure most of it will come out. At least I HOPE. My question is, what would you do/use? I was thinking either a clay bar, which I'm a little afraid of scratching the paint more with the clay or that tough bug/tar remover stuff or whatever? What would you guys do?

 

good question. This is what I would do and I recommend this for you. I would go ahead and clay the area with the imperfections. As long as you provide enough lube for the clay, you dont have to worry about marring the paint. As for removing scratches I would polish the paint with the Porter cable 7424xp to remove the scratches and then lay a layer of wax.
here are the steps
1) Wash the car to remove all the grime and dirt.
2) clay bar the whole car, make sure to use a lot of lube (detail spray)
3) polish the car to a swirl free finish, make sure to use a little extra elbow grease on the more severe scratches.
4) lastly, lay a good sealant or coat of wax to protect the finish.

I personally like to use Adam's polishes, they are a very good brand and sell top notch products. The best thing of Adam's is everything is easy to use and the polishes are very user friendly, especially for newbies. I would definitely check them out
here is a great video by Adam's polishes, also there is a series of videos to check out.

 

what he sed

wash, clay, swirl and haze remover, fine machine polish(or revive polish if you do by hand) then hit it with the sealant or wax...Adam's is deffinately the way to go

 

Yeah it's weird. It almost looks like rubber. If any of you have ever used that california jelly blade before to quickly dry off your car and angled it too extreme (like an *******..like me) and actually rubbed the handle on/across the car at all...yeah it looks like that. I'll have a heart attack if they are scratches, much less deep. ::breathes slowly:: lol. Btw, there's not too much I can do with it right this second in terms of washing it. It's out back and the yard is flooded. :-\ ....so I'll have to post my results probably early next week. Thanks in advance though.

 

I would try to clay bar first and see what kind of results you get with that.