Having worked on recent 3 Series BMWs in the past I thought this was going to be a piece of cake, other than those nasty scratches on the hood, of course. Boy, was I in for a shock when the paint just did not want to behave and the swirls wouldn't budge with a DA buffer and microfiber pads! I pulled out my rotary buffer and a foam polishing pad, but even that made barely a dent. So I stepped up to a wool pad and some M105 Ultra Cut Compound and that was a mixed bag - it removed most of the swirls but the paint really didn't like the wool pad as it left a ton of very fine swirls of its own. So I swapped out to a foam cutting pad and stayed with the M105 - brilliant!! At 1800 rpm it pulled out all the defects and left a beautiful finish.

As for those deep scratches, I knew there was only one solution: I wetsanded with 1500 grit on a DA, refined to 3000 grit, and then compounded out the sanding marks. Here's the result:


The same spot, close up:


The trunk lid:


The whole car:


After going over the whole car with M105 and a foam cutting pad on the rotary I went back over it with M205 Ultra Finishing Polish on the DA buffer to really enhance the depth and gloss, then finished it off with Gold Class Carnauba Plus. Needless to say, the owner was thrilled when she came back to pick the car up. I was beat as I hustled big time on this and completed the whole job in about 6 hours. If I'd had the entire weekend to really do it up, I know it could still look a bit better, but that law of diminishing returns thing comes into play and, well, she is planning on selling it in the next week or so.

Anyway, that's how I have fun on the weekends!