Hey guys, it seems the past few months the paint of Black G keeps getting worse and worse. I just finished washing it today, and I am so dissapointed in the way it looks. There are swirls marks, halos, hazes all over the place. I have tried waxing, swirls removers, etc. and nothing seems to help. Should I just have it profesionally detailed? Let me know what think....

 

I have the same problem. but i havent tried waxing or Buffing yet.

Just make sure your not in the sun when you are washing the car (that damages the paint).

Use a proper wash mit, not a sponge, and use a shammy to dry it off, not a towel.

this should limit the amount of swirl marks you get on your car.

 

I have a black 03 coupe and I was having the exact same problem you are up until a few days ago. I decided to try this new wax that Meguiar's released a few months ago. It's called Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax. It comes with a small applicator pad and you apply a thin layer of it by hand.

It made a tremendous difference!!! I was in a thread the other day on this forum discussing waxes, and I relayed my experience on that page. Another member said that the reason the NXT wax is so effective is that it's full of fillers that "fill in" all those scratches and swirl marks. Apparently the high-end waxes can't be beat for cars with nearly perfect paint, but for those with some damage products like NXT work really well.

Try it out and see what you think. I'd never handwaxed a car myself before Monday night, and it only took me an hour and it looks great! It's a night and day difference!

 

sounds like you should readup on the basics of washing. here are a few:

wipe from front to back and back to front for the hood and roof. wipe up and down for the rest of the car. NO CIRCLES!

have 2 buckets, one with soap water and one with normal water. every couple wipes, rinse the mitt out in the normal water bucket before dunking the mitt back in for more soap water. do not stick the dirty mit in the soap water

get a leaf blower. it will help you dry the car. follow up with a shammy if necessary.

quick detail and wax.

 

I'm always on the side of getting it done right, especially if you're not feeling the finish right now. A good polish will take out most of your swirls, halos, etc - just make sure to use a reputable detailer and ask about his process (make sure he's removing the marring, not hiding, etc..)

Alternatively as vt_maverick mentioned you could fill them in yourself pretty easily. It won't be 100%, but it will look a lot better. Meguiars makes a couple locally available products that could help. Megs #7 is a glaze with lots of fillers that you could apply, then apply NXT over (a wax with fillers), or you could go with Megs #80 and do some hand polishing, then apply NXT. The only issue here is you have to keep NXT applied or you'll start to see the marring again. No biggy, it's easy to keep applied.

Oh, and as Alan mentioned, please do read up about washing. I tell all my customers that washing is *the* most important part of car care. If you mitigate the amount of swirls put into the paint in the future you'll ned to fill and polish it a lot less.

 

Go to http://autopia-carcare.com/ and there is a world of info on there for you to learn from.