Enough for me to understand i guess.. lol.

 

Clearly your in the business and know your stuff, but your coming across as clear as mud. Why do you say clear coat is paint? Clearly, it has no color. How do you differentiate then between the paint that give color, and the clear coating of paint that is clearly only there to protect the paint of color?

 

Clear coat is a paint with no pigment (color).

 

No I havent done anything else to it yet. Just been kinda watching the replies coming in before doing anything. I will try my best to get a good pic of the scratches. The only thing I have done to it is used some Turtlewax Ice paste polish on it and removed it with my "cheapie" 10" DA buffer. It didnt really take any scratches out, which I didnt expect it to either, but it did make the color look even brighter. It would just be nice to get the scratches out, or at least lighten them up some.

Thanks to all for the replies so far!

 

Roger that Sean, lets wait till you can get some pics posted so we can better see a course of action to take. I presume you will be doing this by hand? No DA or anything like that?

Do you have a budget on what you are willing to spend in order to get this done?

 

Clear coated paint is part of a 2 stage process of painting newer vehicles. First stage is the base coat, the second stage is the clear. Clear along with protecting the base coat also has much to do with how the paint will reflect or absorb light. Dull, unpolished clear is like the difference in looking at matt and glossy photos. You will still see the images ok with matt but matt will never allow all the light thru to the original image the way glossy does.
Defects in the clear are always what detailers talk about fixing. Defects thru the clear have to be repainted.

Now when you look at your paint in the proper light the clear will be glossy or somewhat matt looking. Depending on your washing technique, anytime you touch your paint you are inducing at a minimum, micro marring. The recommendations of polishing the clear over hiding the defects is sound.
Real vehicle enthusiast and OCD'ers want the best not good enough yes?

MRLSU2U, if someone polished one of your panels with some Meguiars M205, and you looked at it beside the Zaino defect covered panel you would be amazed at how your paint is supposed to look. Next time you look at your truck in the sunlight, look around the reflection of the sun or halogen lights and see if you really have no defects. Any product can hide defects in the shade or at angles but nothing hides defects in direct light if you know how to look.

My dirty black truck photographs well if you know the angles to avoid and dont get too close with the camera. Lets see a 2'X2' close up in direct light focused to the surface of the vehicle not the focus on reflections.

 

I too, use Zaino products. I bought a Porter Cable 7424XP and use it when I apply the Zaino polish. I had a few areas where I didn't like the finish, I washed, clay barred, then used Zaino Z-PC with the Porter Cable polisher. After a few minutes, the area cleaned up very nice. I then applied the Z-5 swirl remover, and subsequent coats of Z-2 & Z-6. Once I finished, I gave it the Z-8, Grand Finale treatment. I must say, I am very happy with the finish. I would imagine there are other manufacurers, Megs etc, that work just as well. I just choose Zaino.

 

I see part of this thread has degraded into another classic Zaino vs. XXX debate. As one who loves Zaino, but understands its limitations, maybe I can chime in here. Sal makes a fine line of products and they do produce a very nice effect that actually has some durabilty too. That said, most of his products do not remove any kind of defect. (Zaino Fusion being one example of a product Sal makes that does have some decent correction ability.) Many of the other fine Zaino products do have some filling / hiding ability so fine defects will appear to have been removed, but will actually still be there in direct light.

Now for the clear coat debate that's also started. Almost every vehicle made today uses a basecoat / clearcoat paint system. (They also all use electrodeposition primer.) If you looked at a vehicle with only the basecoat step on it, you would see color, but just a satin finish - no gloss. The clearcoat (as Old Dogg has so well stated) adds depth, gloss and protection. If you were to watch either coat being applied, the only difference would be the color of the atomized droplets going on. So yes, it's paint. That said, if you polish through the clearcoat to remove a scratch, you've solved one problem - only to create a bigger one.

Finally, back to the OP. As you and Rollingrock have agreed, let's see some pictures so we can give you some good advice. And, we will always err on the side of the least aggressive product / pad / process first so you don't end up with a real mess to fix.

 

Actually, the real phrase is "cheap and shamless reflecto shots." I coined the term in one of our most popular threads over in The Detailers Cafe. Even those of us who fancy ourselves as somewhat accomplished detailers find ourselves taking an occasional pictures that take advantage of lighting and reflections to make a particular vehicle look even better than it really turned out. We're not proud of it (We're not, right?), but it makes for some great photographs!

 

What I would do:

let someone cut polish it (its a 2003 it could probably use it) If I`m wrong on the year sorry. Then I would wax the living bejebus out of it with some sort of hand wax (maguires) that you like. Keep a bottle of spray detailer around and avoid ever touching it when u wash it. Thats what I did for my brand new 08 (minus the cut polish) and my truck has barely and swirl and I am no expert. BUT I do have one shiny truck!