Zaku-8

I've been washing and waxing my car regularly, probably monthly for the past few months.

Basically, I use autopia MF towels for drying, a cheaper chenille sponge and mitt (these have since been replaced with a better chenille sponge), Mr. Clean Auto Dry, NXT wash, both NXT waxes, and disposable wax applicators. also a different set of MF towels for excess wax removal.

a few months ago i started noticing at a certain, few angles that after a wash, there would be many patterned scratches... although at other angles they wouldnt be noticable. Also, after seeing a car of the same color driving under the road, I noticed that that car seemed much shinier. If i had compared both cars side to side, I probably would have noticed a clear distinction.

So my question is... for a car that is close to 2 years old, does paint begin to fade at some point, and also should a certain level of scratches be expected?

markd

Zaku, all paint will fade over time, but it shouldn't be noticeable after only two years. Most clear coats offer enough UV protection to prevent rapid fading. Your detailing products also add extra protection.

As far as scratches go, in a utopian world, you could avoid scratches 100% of the time, but cerainly they will be inevitable, unless you went over your car with a magnifying glass looking for every spec of dirt, used new towels/sponges/mits for every wash, etc. etc. From the list of the products and towels/applicators that you use, it sounds like you may already be doing a meticulous job with your detailing.

I might offer some suggestions to further minimize your risk of scratches:
- Wash your car at least once between waxes. If you wash/wax once a month, then wash your car every two weeks (the lubricity of the NXT wash is such that it will not remove a significant amount of your wax). That should keep dirt particles from embedding or caking onto your car.
- After you wash but before you wax, feel your paint for grittiness. I would strongly suggest investing in a clay bar system, which you can get at most auto stores, K-Mart (but not Wal-Mart for some reason), etc.

In regard to your present scratches, they could have come from anywhere. Our paint is pretty 'soft' so it's easy to get chips and scratches. For you, that means the scratches could have come from your detailing, or it could have come from road debris or other such culprits (if it's patterned scratches, though, it likely came from your waxing--see clay bar suggestion above, as foam wax applicators scrape dirt into your clear coat/paint). The NXT wax, unfortunately, won't do much for filling in those scratches. Check out post #3 in this thread for an explanation. You might try a mild SMR, like Meg's Scratch-X, to see if that helps remove the scratches (note: those products are not wipe-on, wipe-off...they should be worked into the paint). In that same thread I just mentioned, there are a number of suggestions for buffing out scratches, but they involve orbital buffers/PCs.