Table of Contents
What’s The Best Way To Remove Scratches From A Car?
If you have been unfortunate enough to get scratches on your car you can know how frustrating it can be to remove them. This guide is designed to help you determine if the scratches on your vehicle are removable. It will also help you get rid of the scratches on a car if they can be repaired.
What Kind of Scratch Are You Dealing With?
You would first want to determine if the scratch that you are dealing with is in your clear coat or has gone down into your paint. You can spray some water on the scratches on your car to see if the scratches are in the clear coat.
When you spray water on the scratches and the scratches go away then you know that the scratches are in the clear coat. If you spray water on the scratches and they don’t go away then the scratch has gone through to your paint.
It is important to first determine if your scratches have gone through your clear coat to your paint. This would determine what next steps you would need to take to fix your issue.
If the scratches are in your clear coat you should be able to buff them out. If your scratches have gone into your paint you may not be able to easily remove the scratch using a buffing technique.
You would want to try to remove the scratches from your car by starting with the lowest abrasive method and then working your way up to more high abrasive methods. This way you are not removing more of the clear coat from your paint than you would like.
If you are going to be buffing out your scratches from your paint on your car you may want to invest in a random orbital polisher to make the process easier.
Using a random orbital buffer also makes sure that you won’t cause any additional scratches on the surface of your paint because it spins randomly on the surface of your car. If you don’t use a random orbital polisher then you run the risk of causing swirl marks on the surface of your paint.
Using Different Types of Pads To Remove Scratches On a Car
It’s important to note that there are different types of pads that are designed to be used in different situations. There are polishing pads that are typically made up of loose fibers to help polish the surface of your vehicle.
There are also cutting pads which are designed to help cut through the surface of the clear coat down into the scratches. Cutting pads also come in different stages. Some cutting pads are soft and are designed to only remove a small amount of clear coat from your car.
Other cutting pads are harder and designed to be more abrasive at removing clear coat. You would want to start with less abrasive pads and then make your way up to more abrasive pads if you still are not able to remove the scratches from your car.
Using Wax To Remove Scratches
Some people will apply wax to their scratches and think that they are removing the scratches only to find that they pop back up the next time that they go to wash their car. Applying wax to scratches will only temporarily remove the scratch by covering it up. You aren’t actually removing any scratches by just applying wax to your car.
One thing that you can try however is to apply wax to the scratch and then try to buff out the scratch with a buffing pad. If the scratch is not deep then this method may be able to remove the scratches from your paint.
You would want to make sure that you clean the surface of your paint before you try to remove any scratches from your vehicle. If you don’t clean your car before trying to remove scratches from your car then you may be doing more damage than you are actually fixing.
Next, you would want to apply your wax to your buffing pad to prime the surface of the buffing pad. Using the buffing pad in circular motions you would want to apply light pressure over the surface of the scratch.
After working on the area for a bit you would want to spray water over the surface of the scratch to see if it still appears. If you can still see the scratch after spraying water over it there is still more work to be done to remove it.
Using Polishing Compound to Remove Micro Scratches
Using a polishing compound would be the next higher abrasive material that you would want to use to try to remove your scratches. Polishing compound is designed to remove any micro-scratches in the surface of your paint.
A polishing compound will typically be used with a random orbital polisher to help remove any swirl marks from your paint. You can use your hand and a buffing pad but it will typically take you longer to complete the job than if you had a random orbital polisher.
You would first want to prime your polishing pad with polishing compound by putting a few dots of polishing compound on the surface of the pad and then rubbing it in with your fingers to make sure that you cover the full surface of the pad.
From there you can begin using the polishing compound to try to remove the scratches from your car. You would want to go in small circular movements over the scratch to try to remove it from your vehicle.
If the polishing compound on your pad starts to dry out then you would want to keep applying more polishing compound to the cutting pad to make sure that it is well lubricated. You don’t want to keep polishing with a dry polishing pad.
When your polishing compound starts to dry up you would want to inspect your scratches to see if they are still there. Spraying them with water should indicate if the scratches are still present or not. If the scratches still remain after using polishing compound you would then want to move onto using a cutting compound.
Using Cutting Compound to Remove Scratches
Using a cutting compound is like polishing compound but contains more abrasive materials designed to help you cut through the clear coat of your paint. This allows you to remove more clear coat but it also means that you can begin to damage your paint if you are not careful.
Like polishing compound, you would first want to apply the cutting compound to your polishing pad. You can use your fingers to massage the cutting compound over the full surface of the pad. 
The orange pad is used for cutting, the white pad is used for polishing, and the black pad is used for finishing. Having different pads for polishing or cutting is key. If you are interested in checking out the current prices of the hex-logic pads on Amazon click here.
Now would also be the time to start using harder or more abrasive cutting pads as well to try to help you remove the scratch from the surface of your paint.
In small circular motions using the cutting compound and the cutting pad to try to buff out the scratches from your paint. You would want to stop to make sure that you are not damaging your paint from time to time.
Because of the abrasive nature of cutting compound, it will naturally remove more clear coat than polishing compound or wax.
If you are still not able to remove the scratches from your car after using cutting compound you may want to look at other paint correction methods. You can also try to use swirl mark remover to remove the scratches from your paint.
Using Swirl Mark Remover to Remove Scratches
Swirl mark remover will be about as abrasive as cutting compound but can also aid you in removing scratches from your car. Swirl mark remover should be used in the same method as cutting compound to remove scratches from your paint.
You would want to apply the scratch remover to your buffing pad and then use the buffing pad in small circular motions to remove the scratches from your car.
After the scratch remover starts to dry out you would want to check the scratches to see if they have been removed by spraying water over them.
If the scratches are still present after you have sprayed them with water you would are likely looking at having to touch up or repaint the area to remove the scratches.
Using Touch Up Paint to Cover Up Scratches
You can buy touch up paint at your local dealership or online that will match the color of your car. I did this for my vehicle by going onto Amazon and searching for the make, model, year, and color of my car. From there it will tell you what color code your paint should be.
Once I knew what color code I should be using for my touch up paint I went onto Amazon and bought a small container of touch up paint.
The touch-up paint that I went with had two ways to apply the touch-up paint to my car. One end was a pen tip that you could use for small scratches. On the other end, there was a fine tip brush that you could use to fill larger scratches.
Depending on how deep your scratches are would be if I would recommend if you should be using touch up paint to fix your scratches. If you have deep scratches that you can feel with your fingernail I would say that you could use touch up paint to fill those scratches. If you have tiny scratches that are not that deep applying touch-up paint to those scratches may make the area look worse.
When applying touch up paint you want to try to make sure that you fill the scratch while not applying so much paint that it sticks out over the rest of the surface of your paint.
If you apply too much paint over the scratch it will be visible when the paint drys that the area had been touched up. This may not be that big of a deal to you if your car is old but if you have a brand new car you likely want to make sure that it stays looking good for as long as possible.
I used my touch up paint on my car to touch up any rock chips that I had gotten on my front bumper and hood to prevent any rust. My front bumper is made of plastic so I don’t have to worry about it rusting but my hood is made of metal so it will rust if I let any rock chips go too long.
It’s important that if you have any rock chips on your hood that you use touch-up paint to fill that chip in your paint. If you let that paint chip go too long it will start to rust which you don’t want.
That rust can start to spread to the rest of the body panel which can lead to more problems down the line. If you use touch-up paint on any rock chips that you may have when you first notice them that will prevent the rust from spreading.
Sanding and Repainting to Cover Up Scratches
If you have been unsuccessful in removing your scratches from your car with the above methods you would want to progress to using sandpaper to remove the scratch.
The technique is called wet sanding because you would wet your sandpaper to provider some lubrication between the sandpaper and your paint so that you don’t remove your paint.
You can use 3000 and then 5000 grit sandpaper on the surface of the scratch to try to remove it. The video below shows this process better than I could type it out so I would check out the video below if you are wanting to try to remove your scratches using sandpaper.
Clear Coat Scratch Repair
If you have a very large scratch or a large area of fine scratches you may be better off repainting that body panel. You would want to apply primer to the surface of the scratch and then let that primer dry so that it is hard.
From there you can sand down the area that you applied primer to so that you level down the primer to the same height as your paint. This should remove any scratches that are into the surface of your paint.
After you have smoothed down the primer so that your body panel is smooth you can then repaint your body panel with spray paint. You can buy spray paint that matches your color code like you can buy touch up paint that matches your color code.
I did this when I bought paint for my car so that I could repaint my spoiler on my car that had the paint cracking and fading.
When you are applying new paint to an older car it can be tricky to match the color of the existing paint as it has likely faded over time and from being in the sun.
If you can prevent repainting the whole panel with new paint that would be preferred. That way you can blend your new paint over your old paint so that it’s not that obvious that the body panel has had new paint applied to it.
The video below is intended to be used to show you how to repair rust spots in your car but towards the end, it shows you how to apply primer and paint to your car and how to blend your new spray paint with the paint on your body panel.
How to Fix Rust Spots
In Conclusion
Hopefully, now you have a good understanding of what it takes to remove scratches from your car. You would want to start with the less abrasive method to make sure that you aren’t damaging your paint and then move to more abrasive methods like sandpaper.
If you are still not able to remove the scratches from your car using the wet sanding technique you may need to look at using primer and then respraying your body panel with spray paint.
After you have removed or covered up the scratches in your cars paint then you would want to apply a coating to help protect it. The easiest way to do this is to apply car wax to your paint.
If you are looking for a more permanent solution to help protect your paint you may want to look at applying a layer of ceramic coating to your car. If you want to learn more about ceramic coating and its benefits check out my other article about the benefits of using a ceramic coating.