After having my fit for a few days I noticed a million hairline scratches on the roof and other areas of the car. They are hard to see in broad daylight, but are really noticeable under the street lights and in the dealer's shop. I brought it to the dealer and they said they will buff them out. I wonder if the detailer washed it with a dirty sponge or waxed it with a old rag or something. I'm not too excited. I just don't want some clown to buff the car and trash the clear coat

Any suggestions??

 

i had the same thing on my fit i had to claybar it polish it and then wax it to get it to look good and i have storm silver i would hate to see the same thing on black

 

Though mine didn't come with those microscratches upon delivery, I notice, and this may just be my imagination, but the paint seems to microscratch quite easily, compared to my numerous previous black Hondas.

Doesn't bug me too much as I only notice it when the car is clean and that lasts for about 2 blocks.

 

First off, if you have any affinity for detailing, do it yourself. I am a hobby detailer and work full time in sales at a high line dealership. You would be amazed at how cheap delaers are with their detailing departments. I will personally detail my customer's car on my day off before I would refer them to the dealership for a detail.

Secondly, manufacturers from different countries have very different paint types. Japanese manufacturers are notorious for having very soft paint. Good thing about that is it is relatively easy to remove scatches and swirls. Bad thing is that if you don't properly wash and maintain you vehicle, they will get swirls and holograms easily.

Honda ships most of their vehicles with a rubbery coating that is difficult to remove well. Most dealers will be far to aggressive in removing the film, and this is when the paint is its softest. If your car is clean and washed, run the back of your hand across the clean paint. Most likely it will not feel smooth as glass as it should. It needs to be clayed, polished, and waxed. You can do that all yourself relatively easy and should be able to find all of the materials at a autoparts store. The dealer will not clay the car and will just take the buffer right to the paint. That may remove the hairline scratches, but will inflict holograms that will look awful when the sun hits the paint.

If you want any advice or tips on detailing, feel free to message me or post back in this page. Good luck and enjoy the fit.

 

maxfit, my NHBP is covered in swirls and little scratches from trying to get old scratches out. If I got a buffer and some meguairs scratch-x, polish, paint cleaner, and wax, do you think that would get them all out?

Any advice on how to do it by hand?

 

If a few coats of wax isn't covering up the scratches, I would use Scratch X. Here ya go:

How To Remove Swirls By Hand - Car Care Forums: Meguiar's Online

 

Hey ercdvn01, I highly discourage using a buffer unless you are willing to take the time to learn how to properly use them. There are two basic types of buffers, your DA (dual action) and your rotary. DA is relatively safe as the pad oscilates which keeps the pad from building heat in a localized sport, thus burning the paint. Rotary buffers rotate on one fixed point, thus building extreme heat and can be very dangerous unless you know what you are doing (very few people do).

If you want to get into seriously maintaining your car, a DA buffer can be a great tool. I have one and use it relatively frequently to remove such defects that you are mentioning. They can also be used to apply wax and ensure proper coverage and makes sure the product isn't over applied. If you would like to go that route, Meguiar's has a DA buffer that they sell which is manufactured by Porter Cable. Meguiars has three different pad intensities and some great products to work with for paint repair and maintenance.

If you don't want to get that vested into the very indepth world of auto detailing, there are other hand products that you can use. Meguiars just cam out with some new products for 2009 that are for primarily hand use. Go the the Meguiars.com website and find them there. They have scratch removers, swirl mark removers, and compounds. All can be used by hand or machine, by hand will just take a but more elbow grease, but can be very rewarding. I have not used these specific products as I use items from the professional line, but these are just variations on the products that I use and I know they will work as described. I have been using meguiars products exclusively for 5-6 years and they all work well.

I always feel that detailing your car yourself is such good therapy and really can show you small things that you may not have noticed about your car previously. Such things as small body lines that regularly go unseen or small engineering bits that make the big difference in our cars. I could write a book on all of the detailing knowledge I consumed through my interest in this hobby of mine. meguiarsonline.com is a great source of information, read through the blogs and search for topics that concern your needs. There are a lot of how too forums/posts and many pictures to show you the befores and afters. Gotta run as I am at work still, but let me know if anyone needs any specifics on certain things. Hope that was of some assistance and keep enjoying you fits. I have 600 miles on mine in 2 weeks, love this car! First detail tomorrow.

 

One last things, preping the paint is the most important thing in repairing the marks. Make sure you clay the paint as you need a clean surface to properly fix any defects.

 

The curse of the Honda Fit paint - scratches too easily. I found out the hard way the Auto Zone microfibers are way too scratchy on the Fit. Purchased microfibers from Meguirers web site and really can tell the difference. Meguiers clay bar kit and Next Gen wax seemed to work pretty well for me. I do have Scratch X but decided to use the clay bar to see how it did. I was really impressed with the outcome and I have promised not to take the car through the auto hand wash any more this winter no matter what. That resulted in more spider webs on the car. Meguiers web site is great and loads of detailed step by step instructions plus you get the updates on new products.

Cat :x