To Buff or Not to Buff?

The last wash for Accord was dated 3 weeks ago, it was in horrible condition with additional scratches done by the cats, bird dropping etches and other craps. After washing and drying that car, I inspected the paintwork and found out mild acid rain etches start to show up. I was tempted to pull out my Makita and start removing the new scratches and etches. But in the end, I took out my 6 years old tube of Scratch-X and did spot repair by hand. It was good enough to reduce the visibility of the etches but unable to remove effectively.

Keeping our car in flawless condition is our wish. Unfortunately, our car is used daily and it's subjected to all sorts of attack. Keeping it flawless by continually rotary buffing will reduce the clearcoat in no time. So this left us two choices...

1) Keep the car at home for display

2) Live with the condition and wash/wax regularly

Perhaps it's good enough to compound your car once every 2 years and polish once a year and not forgetting to wash it weekly and wax it monthly. With this rule of thumb, you should be able to preserve your clearcoat for the next few years before changing a new car or refinishing with high quality paintwork.