polishing a dull repainted panel

[treborrobert]

My 51 reg Mondeo ghia X is looking very shabby.
It had its bonnet painted over 2 years ago (before I got it) and I`m ashamed to say its only ever seen Halfords and Turtle wax shampoo in the time since.

The paintwork has now gone flat and dry with almost no sheen at all, can anyone give me some advice on what I should to to improve things.

The car is silver metallic.

The car's just a motorway express and I`m not looking for perfection, I just want a reasonably tidy car once more.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

[morebeanz]

Hi mate! There are several ways to approach this, so I will assume that you can't get your hands on a polishing machine or anything like that, and take you at your word that you're just trying to improve things rather than fully correct the paintwork. Start by washing the car!

Then you'll need to polish the paintwork with a moderate grade polish, which should take off the badly oxidised paint and moderate any scratches. Then you'll need to use a cleanser, which is a very mild sort of polish, to clear any hazing brought on by step one, and they usually contain a (temporary) filler to disguise any scratches not polished out. You could apply a sealant at this point as an extra step, or move straight to a decent wax and buff.

There are lots of brands of polishes and waxes, but Meguiar's is popular and straightforward to get hold of for the polishes. Personally I use Menzerna polishes and P21s wax.

Best of luck!