Where the
world gathers for metal finishing
Q&As since 1989


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Car clearcoat repair

I have a Mitsubishi 3000GT and I have some scratches in the clearcoat. The reason I say this is the scratches are only visible in bright sun light. In shade or when the car is wet, they can not be seen. I was thinking of buying a product called gh treatment and see if it would do as it advertises. It is quite expensive so I wanted to know if anyone had tried it and what results were gotten. Thank you for any help you can give. Chris

Christopher Webb
student - Fairview, North Carolina
January 29, 2008

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February 4, 2008

I just tried the 5pd and here's the scoop. I've got a black 93 Geo tracker with a ton of fine scratches and swirl marks. I applied the 5 sp per instructions with mixed results. my paint looks darker (because the fine scratches have been filled in) but does not have the shine one would see after a good wax job. the surface looks uneven. today I experimented with a number of waxes and polishes to see if I could get a good shine on top of the 5pd. using meguiars cleaner/wax I was able to get a small section looking pretty good. I'll have to keep experimenting.

so far, my conclusions are:
1. it does make really bad finishes look better-especially black.
2. I wouldn't use it on a car with a good paint job without testing it very carefully on a small area- you might not like the result.
3. if you've got the time and energy to polish and wax over the 5pd you can get a better result.

hope this helps.

Gregg Stokell
- Thousand Oaks, California

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here's a follow up-

I went to work on my tracker with the meguiars to buff out the 5pd. o.k., it took a bunch of elbow grease, but my paint is starting to look spectacular. this stuff really does what it claims (although there is no mention in their instructions of the necessity of polishing the finish.)

Gregg Stokell
- Thousand Oaks, California
February 14, 2008

I've been driving black cars for almost 30 years (they look so good if you take care of them) I discovered Meguiars cleaner / wax years ago. I suspect several applications of the Meguiars will do the trick, without using 5pd. I use it on my black Mustang GT with clear coat twice a year and even with 160,000 miles, people think it's brand new...

George Brackett III
Plating engineer (35+ years) - Saco, Maine
February 25, 2008

Well i,ve used 5pd on 3 cars so far, 2 black & 1 red. On the black ones they look GREAT and stand out from the rest. But 1 problem is that when you stand next too the vech. you see scratches underneath the 5pd , well I will look the vech over again next week too get a better idea on how well it works . Most of the scratches did go away. On the red one was a suv red pearl the apperance after doing the entire vech was outstanding very pleased with its results

James arszman
- cincinnati ohio
September 15, 2009