I discovered that my rear driver-side fender was scratched up today. I don't think I did it myself, but it wouldn't be the first dumb thing I've done. I'm wondering if there's any magical car-care product that'll reduce the appearance of this, or if I'm going to have to replace it. Replacing is a bit of a bummer since I had the side marker tinted. I found this part which looks right. It has a warning that it won't fit, which I think is probably incorrect. At least it's not too expensive. Not sure how to install, though. If it requires taking the wheel off then it's probably not a DIY job for me. Maybe a 2yr service project at the dealer. I thought maybe nothing was happening on this forum, but I think it's just because my notifications broke when they moved it around. Back on now...
Direction of the swipe looks like it went from front -> back at a curve like a white car was reversing out and swiped the fender trim. Impact is largest on the area on the side marker face. If that's the case you could buff out the clearcoat and white paint, but you will have to live with the plastic scratches. Just be happy that your rear quarter panel is undamaged. In many luxury brands that could be a $15k+ job for replacement (have to cut and re-weld the unibody).
The SE sits a bit higher than the regular F56 supposedly and therefore has slightly bigger wheel arch molding to fill the gap to the tires/wheels.
I've used paint polishing compound to make plastic scratches look less bad. You can't remove them, but they can be smoothed a bit.
Haven’t tried… but I’d like to, because replacing it means redoing the tint. What products would you use to tackle it?
Since you don't have a dual action or rotary machine, you can try a very gentle magic eraser. Don't be too aggressive or you will end up scratching and dulling the plastic. The goal is to remove the white paint transfer. Investing in the tools and products is such a rabbit hole!
You can use rubbing compound they two type heavier reddish and white light and you don’t need tools but the edge where you see black plastic you be not able to fix it is only dealer option to replace fender
Once you remove a white you can get touch up paint and if you can live with imperfection the edge of fender you touch up with brush but this method never will be perfect like dealer job rubbing compound $20 touch up paint $20 Go for dealer job if you perfectionist sometimes is not worth to do DIY job
One more cheapest option to buy that you see a picture use just spray water and polish white staff paint off you not gonna do any damage with this approach have to be 3000/5000 only
Wait, you can only see one side at a time, so scuff the other one on the same side to disguise the original scuff. I remember having just two hubcaps on my beater decades ago--I put them both on the driver's side so it was easier to forget I didn't have all four.
