The Best Car Scratch Removers of 2024

Nothing takes the wind out of your sails like that first paint scratch on a new car. The best car scratch removers can take care of many of those little blemishes with a little know-how and elbow grease rather than a pricey trip to the auto body shop.

We sought out the best car scratch removers and tested them while trying to brighten up a range of vehicular blemishes. The kits here can get rid of blemishes, from taking away that scratch left by your jeans button to that “kiss” from the other car in your garage that left a little paint behind or the bumper-tap exchange that someone left as a souvenir when you parallel parked overnight on a city street.

These scratch removers easily buff out the most common stuff. You won’t be able to erase the to-the-metal gouges, but this list has some excellent options for minor issues.

It should be noted that a professional detailing shop will always nail this better than you can. They have speed-tunable buffers with different grits of sponges and sanding tools that a chamois, a bottle of goop, and your hand cannot simulate. So the “miracle” we’re promising here is a minor one — like a third-tier palm reading. But if that’s what you’re looking for, read on.

Editor’s Note: For our November 27, 2024 update, we added a Price & Value section to show what buyers get with different price points.

The Best Car Scratch Removers of 2024

Best Overall Car Scratch Remover: Meguiar’s Scratch Eraser Kit
Best Bargain Car Scratch Remover: Shine Armor Revive Scratch Repair
Best Car Scratch Remover for Simulating the Pros: 3M Scratch Removal System
Best Car Scratch Remover for Hand Buffing: Formula 1 Scratch Out

Specs

Type: Drill attachment kit
Grit: Fine
Safe For: All glossy paint, clear coats
Price: $30

Pros

Easy to use with any household drill
Quick and straightforward
Got to scratches hand-only buffing can’t

Cons

Doesn’t resolve deeper scratches in the clearcoat and beyond

Unlike the other systems, the Meguiar’s Scratch Eraser Kit ($23) doesn’t come with sandpaper or two different “grits” of drill sponge, and there’s only one level of polish. And, as you would guess, that meant we didn’t find it was as useful for attacking deeper damage to any car’s clear coat. But it also means there’s less involved. You clean the area, dab some of the compound onto the drill sponge, and work through the scratch while keeping the drill on at about medium speed.

What’s pretty heartening, however, is that when we couldn’t get a hand application to cut the mustard, the Meguiar’s Kit was generally up to the task, and the process never took more than a few minutes. We found it was also very good at buffing out tiny, hairline scratches. And, because it’s drill-based, you can work over a larger area more quickly than operating by hand.

Since the bottle that comes with the system is a generous 4 ounces, we were able to try it on a bunch of other cars, too, like a friend’s old MG, his VW, our tester’s Honda, and even his old tractor. It shined on each one.

That said, we’re talking about a $6 difference between this setup and the 3M one, and we’d probably recommend the latter if you’ve got some pretty deep gouges. Because at that point, you really do need that extra-fine sandpaper and to go through both steps of buffing and polishing.

As with the 3M, using a drill has drawbacks. It is difficult to get into the crannies of your car’s sheet metal, and again, you could end up over-buffing a creased edge. Use caution and always work the drill slowly, keep it moving, and don’t press too hard. Let the material do the work.

If we could change one thing with Meguiar’s Scratch Eraser Kit, it would be to allow the applicator sponge to be removable from the drill bit, as it is with the 3M system. It’s easier to wash and thoroughly clean that way, but as it is, this is a very good value that gave us great results.

Specs

Type: Formula
Grit: N/A
Safe For: All glossy paint, clear coats
Price: $8

Pros

Easy to use with a microfiber towel
Application is simple
Handled swirl marks and fingernail scratches like a champ

Cons

Can’t get to deeper scratches
Does not come with drill attachment

Shine Armor Revive Scratch Repair ($8) attacked swirl marks left by car washes and door handle fingernail micro-scratches. Like all of the hand-application polishers we tested, the game plan is very simple — make sure the surface is clean and dry (and cool), add a very small amount to a clean, dry microfiber towel, and apply medium to hard pressure as you spread the polish around and rub.

We were consistently impressed with this product. It removed surface scratches from the clear coats of several different cars, and we felt like the restoration value of what we saw, even with a haggard paint job, like on my old Honda, was pretty impressive.

After fixing up the door handle of a friend’s VW — which had pretty bad fingernail scratches — he went after scratches all over his car. (Spoiler alert: No, he couldn’t miraculously restore rock chips that went all the way through to bare metal on the edge of his car’s hood.)

Another reason to like Shine Armor Revive Scratch Repair was that it left less residue than competing brands. We were able to just keep polishing, and it left virtually nothing behind once we were done. Several of the others required coming back and really rubbing away the remaining dust or you’d have swirls left by the compound that were nearly as hard to remove as the scratches themselves.

Specs

Type: Drill attachment kit
Grit: 3,000
Safe for: All glossy paint, clear coats
Price: $30

Pros

Definitely removed paint from door dings
Best system for deeper scratches in the clear coat
Lessened scratches into the car’s base coat
Not as much work as manual rubbing

Cons

Takes patience to yield great results
Both polishing compounds come in tiny sleeves that cannot be resealed

No other scratch-remover we tested came close to the 3M Scratch Removal System ($30) when it came to buffing out deeper scratches. But, the process is pretty involved and you must be careful with step one! Why? Because you’re going to sand the paint of your car, and if you apply too much pressure, you’ll do lasting damage. This first stage, however, is meant to sand the scratch out of the clear coat, and you’re going to make that whole area around that scratch look dull.

Next, you use the compounding pad fitted to your drill and dab it with a bit of rubbing compound. Swirl this around using an up-down/side-to-side series of motions until you don’t see any evidence of the mark remaining. Then rub off the remaining compound with a dry cloth.

Next, change the applicator to the polisher pad and switch to the polishing compound. Repeat the same motion and remove any residue once you’ve achieved a decent shine.

Depending on the depth and scale of the scratch, the entire process could take 30 minutes or longer. Still, we loved this system because it really worked, even if it’s overkill for a minor fingernail scratch on a door handle or some swirl marks caused by the plastic brushes of a carwash.

We tested this system on several scratches on a few cars. Two cars had paint from door and bumper “taps” from other cars, which sanded off easily. The underlying scratches weren’t through the clear coat on one and definitely right through on another — more minor scuffs were easy to remove entirely with sanding.

There are a few downsides to the 3M Scratch Removal System. Obviously, it costs a bit more than the compounds alone. You need an electric drill, too, and that means you can’t easily access some folds in the car’s skin.

Additionally, you can inadvertently find yourself buffing right on an edge and burning through the clear coat too easily. The only other failing is that the two compounds come in dinky, 1-ounce envelopes that cannot be resealed. 3M does sell these fluids separately, but it would be great if these came in bottles that could be closed so that the compounds wouldn’t dry out.

Of note: We also tested the 3M Scratch Removal System on scratches that couldn’t be removed by using any of the rival hand compounds, and very often, we could remove all or most of those imperfections this way. That’s a very strong selling point if you’ve got even just a few blemishes that are deep enough that you can feel them when you run a finger over the surface.

Specs

Type: Formula
Grit: N/A
Safe For: All glossy paint, clear coats
Price: $12

Pros

Easy to use with a microfiber towel
Application is simple
Handled swirl marks, and even some deeper scars well

Cons

Low viscosity can make it harder to apply
Temperature sensitive

The application of Formula 1 Scratch Out ($12) is a little different. Similar to a car wax, you buff it on, let it dry to a haze, then polish it off. As a result, it leaves a bit of a dusty residue that we learned is easier to eliminate if you take a fresh microfiber towel and rub it away.

In a cool garage, it was really easy to use, though even after vigorous shaking, it comes out of the bottle more like a melted milkshake than the thicker products here. This means you have to be careful when you squeeze some out.

Also, even though our guidance below tells you not to apply to a hot car or one that’s been parked outdoors for a while, this stuff is much more temperature-sensitive, so be sure to apply to cool metal or it gets pretty goopy and messy.

That said, Formula 1 Scratch Out rocks. We tried it on larger areas that were just scuffed or dull and got excellent results — like you would from a car wax, but better. It polished away microfine scratches that go a bit deeper than any wax can tackle. Also, because it’s less viscous, it’s easier to apply to a big area and go to town polishing.

The only negative is chasing away some of the dustiness after polishing, but it’s worth it for the results we saw.

Specs

Type: Formula
Grit: N/A
Safe For: All glossy paint, clear coat
Price: $37

Pros

Works on very minor scratches
Application is simple

Cons

Not as effective as alternatives

When we tested the Carfidant Scratch and Swirl Remover ($13) on some finer fingernail scratches, it worked decently, but not as well as the polishers we’ve recommended here. The difference could be down to the applicator sponge, which is very soft and is probably designed to prevent over-buffing and causing damage. Work gently and diligently and you could take care of very minor blemishes, but Carfidant wasn’t as effective, even with several passes.

During testing, a scratch we tried to remove using Carfidant wasn’t totally removable, so we tried using Shine Armor instead and were able to reduce it to invisibility.

Since we were a bit frustrated with Carfidant Scratch and Swirl Remover, we also tried it using a microfiber towel and it proved a bit more effective, especially with hairline scratches. That begs the question: Why are they charging more to include the sponge if the product works better without it?

Given that you could get the Meguiar’s kit for about the same money — which is a more effective system than any hand-applied choice — we’re pretty confident in suggesting alternatives on our list.

Best Car Scratch Removers Comparison Table

Car Scratch Remover	Price	Type	Grit	Safe For
Meguiar’s Scratch Eraser Kit	$30	Drill attachment kit	Fine	All glossy paint, clear coats
Shine Armor Revive Scratch Repair	$8	Formula	N/A	All glossy paint, clear coats
3M Scratch Removal System	$30	Drill attachment kit	3,000	All glossy paint, clear coats
Formula 1 Scratch Out	$12	Formula	N/A	All glossy paint, clear coats
Carfidant Scratch and Swirl Remover	$37	Formula	N/A	All glossy paint, clear coat

How We Tested the Best Car Scratch Remover Kits

Our Expert Tester

Lead tester Michael Frank has plenty of old and not-so-old cars where the paint is toast. His love of old rides puts him squarely in the camp of believing that just about any paint job can be made better and that polishers really can be very effective at restoring the epidermal quality of just about anything you drive.

Our Testing Process

We had a lot of varied paint to buff, from an old Honda Gold Wing from the 1970s to a Volvo P1800, to modern cars with metallic paint and plastic bumpers. A good polisher shouldn’t “care” if it’s painted plastic or painted metal, but modern cars and motorcycles tend to have more severely creased sheet metal and sharp angles can be hazardous to polish because you have to be careful with how much pressure you apply.

We tested not just for how easy these polishers were to use, how quickly they worked, or how many steps were involved, but also for ease of use. How hard might it be to over-polish and rip right through the clearcoat, pigment, and bare metal? Fortunately, the answer is they were all fairly user-friendly.

Bottom line, we were shocked at how effective each was, period. You can take some really tired paint and make it sparkle with almost zero work, which makes grabbing a bottle of this stuff and getting to work a no-brainer.

Hand-application scratch removers are ideal for eliminating smaller scratches; (photo/Michael Frank)

Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose a Car Scratch Remover

Ease is somewhat related to effectiveness on these. The hand-applied products can be decent at removing hairline blemishes and spiral marks left by car-wash brushes, fingernails, door rubs, and other blemishes. If all you have are a few tiny key scratches around a lock, these are your go-tos.

If you’re trying to go deeper to repair scratches caused by rock strikes in your bumper or hood that (importantly) didn’t penetrate to the car’s plastic or metal — but you can actually feel when you glide a finger over the surface — you want to go with a drill-buffer.

We found them more effective at blending away the bulk of these kinds of scrapes. It’s also less fatiguing to use them because you’re letting the drill do the work, not your hands rubbing away for several minutes at a pass.

Kinds of Scratch Removers

We tested two types of car scratch removers. There are rub-on ones you apply by hand and either let dry to a haze or ones that use a buffer that you attach to a cordless drill. But you can go farther.

Several companies sell orbital polishers that offer two advantages: 1. The pad’s surface area tends to be larger. 2. The speed control of the orbital can be set separately, so you’re not trying to modulate it the way you do with the trigger of a cordless drill. Also, the angle of the design allows easier use when applying pressure to doors, roofs, and car hoods.

If you’re really concerned with your car’s finish, that may be something you want to consider. Orbital polishers start at around $40, so they aren’t insanely expensive.

If you bought one, you could still use one of the polisher fluids we evaluated, such as the Turtle Wax Scratch Repair and Renew, which we found worked pretty well with a drill-based polishing pad.

Getting back to what we tested, even the pads that we used with a cordless drill were pretty impressively effective. None more so than the 3M system where you very lightly sanded the affected area and then used the two solutions and pads in the kit.

This hints at what more serious processes look like if you go the route of buying an orbital buffer, etc. It also tells us that you maybe don’t have to go all in unless you’re as OCD about having a really shiny car as we’ve now become.

How to Use Car Scratch Removers

No Sun, No Heat

Where you polish your car’s battered paint matters. Never take on this job in direct sunlight, or even on a car in the shade with hot paint. It changes the chemistry of the polishing compound so it dries too quickly and turns what should be a wet-sanding sort of process into a dry one — and that can vaporize your car’s clear coat.

(Thank us later: We tried polishing one car in direct sunlight just to see what would happen and it’s not only too abrasive, but the goop gets incredibly tough to move around, too.)

What They Don’t Do

Polishers essentially sand away some of the clear coat and a bit of paint pigment below that, and then polish it. After sanding the scratch nice and level, you restore the remaining paint with a polishing chemical in the agent you’re applying.

That said, we didn’t find that there was some miracle cure in a bottle and buffer that would restore rock strikes that went right down to bumper plastic or bare metal. For that, you’ll still want to seek the help of a professional.

Wash First

The other crucial detail here is that you want to work on a clean, dry surface unless the product instructs otherwise (as with the 3M, where you use the sandpaper on slightly wet-down paint). If a car is very dirty or the paint is especially haggard, you might want to use a clay bar on the car’s paint after it’s been washed and dried to pull out contaminants before trying to remove scratches.

Choose Your Polisher

Some hand-applied scratch removers worked really well for only micro swirls. But there was just no substitute for using the two buffers we tried that are meant for use with a cordless drill. That method removed scuffs and paint left by folks who “park by feel” in parking lots and curbside.

As long as a scratch wasn’t deep into the car’s pigment coat, we could easily clean up mars and blemishes that we feared only a professional detailer could fix.

Sanding and drill-mounted scratch removers can leave cars looking like new; (photo/Michael Frank)

Go S-l-o-w-l-y

Every polisher we tested worked better with light up and down, side-to-side passes using very light pressure, and then pausing to review the work and wiping away the polisher residue to check our progress. The more light passes we made, the more the area improved. And it was almost addictive to walk the perimeter of every car we were experimenting on to see which scratches we could remove and how much shine we could extract.

Yes, it was actually a lot of fun! All the cars benefited from removing the worst scar tissue and restoring some of their faded luster.

Price & Value

Budget

Does everyone need to go whole hog and get a buffer? Not really. If your vehicle is relatively new and you just have a few fingernail scratches, it’s easy enough to buy the cheapest polishing compound on our list and try it first. We were pretty amazed at how effective some of these were and how quickly they worked. For example, Formula 1 Scratch Out ($12) is similar to car wax, polishing away micro scratches with ease. During testing, it even eliminated some slightly deeper scratches that car wax couldn’t erase.

Drill-mounted scratch remover kits are well-suited for deeper scratches and nicks; (photo/Michael Frank)

Premium

If you have one spot with a big scuff or paint from another car on the edge of a door, you may want to spring for a like the 3M Scratch Removal System ($30), which comes with drill-compatible sanding pads as well as scratch remover fluid. It easily sanded off paint from door and bumper “taps” that accumulate in tight parking lot spaces. Plus, minor scuffs were easy to remove entirely with sanding.

Frequently Asked Questions

The most effective way to remove light scratches and dings is with a drill-mounted orbital polisher and a good polisher fluid. We’re fans of the 3M Scratch Removal System and Meguiar’s Scratch Eraser Kit because they are both all-in-one kits that worked extremely well in testing.

They absolutely do, with the caveat that they won’t replace paint that isn’t there anymore. So, scratches in the clear coat and even slightly into the color coat can be reduced, even if they aren’t quite totally repairable.

Ensure you only wash and dry your car with clean microfiber towels and chamois. Ideally, you want to hose off any visible grit first and work downward from the top of the car when you’re first cleaning. This prevents inadvertently spreading the road grime that clings to your car’s sills and fenders and working that into the paint.

Try to knock off the bulk of dirt and grime with a high-pressure hose — not by hand — so you know that the paint is as dirt-free as possible. And, never wax a car in the sun.

Well, you won’t remove any scratch that is through the pigment layer or into the primer. That’s a job for a detail or body shop that will touch-up paint that spot. Even then, blending that perfectly is nearly impossible. But as we’ve said throughout, using a drill-based polisher — especially our 3M choice with a light sanding first — can do wonders for minor scratches that just slightly penetrate the color layer.

The Best Car Scratch Removers of 2024

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Best Car Scratch Removers Comparison Table

How We Tested the Best Car Scratch Remover Kits

Our Expert Tester

Our Testing Process

Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose a Car Scratch Remover

Kinds of Scratch Removers

How to Use Car Scratch Removers

No Sun, No Heat

What They Don’t Do

Wash First

Choose Your Polisher

Go S-l-o-w-l-y

Price & Value

Budget

Premium

Frequently Asked Questions

Gear Up and Get Out

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