Car paint question

This forum has a lot of folks who know about cars, so maybe someone here can help me. I just discovered that someone must have scraped something against my car (no, I don't have a Leaf yet. This is my Volvo C70). :x
There is no dent or deformation, so it must have been very low speed/impact, probably a shopping cart loaded with something going between cars. It left a 3" stripe of paint on the fender. So far as I can tell there is no damage to or breaking through the clear coat, just a deposit of paint on top, two colors, in fact. I tried scrubbing with a plastic brush and a Tuffy pad with water, and about half of it came off, but not the rest. Then I used a paper towel with some very old paint thinner, which I quickly washed off and dried so as not to harm the clear coat, but the unwanted paint is still there. Can someone recommend a good product that will dissolve or loosen the deposited paint without harming the clear coat? Acetone, maybe? I'm afraid to try anything that might make things worse. I don't think steel wool would be advisable.

Rat, amazingly enough paste auto wax removes a tremendous amount of "stuff" that shouldn't be on your car's surface. If you have any around, give it a shot (might take patience and some elbow grease). If that doesn't do the trick, I would recommend rubbing compound, which you can get in the detailing/car wash section of any auto parts store (even K-mart, WalMart type stores). Use an old t-shirt. If you use the rubbing compound, apply wax after in that area to protect the surface. Anything more abrasive than rubbing compound can leave its own scratches. Good luck!

My wife's Lexus had the same thing happen. I got most off with cleaner/wax. What didn't I used a clay bar and that took care of the rest. Just make sure to rewax after you're done.

LEAFguy said:

If that doesn't do the trick, I would recommend rubbing compound, which you can get in the detailing/car wash section of any auto parts store (even K-mart, WalMart type stores). Use an old t-shirt. If you use the rubbing compound, apply wax after in that area to protect the surface. Anything more abrasive than rubbing compound can leave its own scratches. Good luck!

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Is there a concern that the rubbing compound will take off the clear coat finish? How important is the clear coat to maintaining the integrity of the paint?

LakeLeaf said:

Is there a concern that the rubbing compound will take off the clear coat finish? How important is the clear coat to maintaining the integrity of the paint?

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You won't go through a clear coat with rubbing compound unless you use a polishing machine.

However, I suggest the use of a scratch/swirl remover between the rubbing compound and wax stages for best results.

Boy, that was quick turnaround. Thanks to everyone for what was good advice, but the story only has a partially happy ending. I used paste wax, which got off about half the white paint that was deposited on the green car. No amount of scrubbing or wax helped with the last bit so I decided to chance it and used acetone, which worked like a charm. No more white. I quickly washed the area thoroughly and waxed, then washed again and wiped & dried. I don't think the acetone has done any damage to the clear coat or green paint. However, I realized that the orange-red that I thought was the second color deposited on the car was actually the primer. Whoever scraped my car did wreck the real paint.

However, five years ago I was rear-ended by a car on the freeway. He admitted fault and his insurance company paid for repairs to my car at an excellent body shop. ($7000+, and that was just body work. No frame or engine damage. And there were two cars in front of me he also had to pay for since he pushed me into car #3, into car #4. All three of the other cars were new, expensive models, one still bearing the dealer paper plate pending arrival of the DMV plate. That was one expensive accident.) I digress. The point is that the body shop gave me a small bottle of touch up paint that was the original Volvo factory paint. I just used it on the red scrapes. It is definitely the right color. If it flattens out nicely it should be almost indistinguishable. I could tell though that there are scratches in the metal so it probably will not look like new no matter what. Since I'm probably going to give the car (or sell very cheap) to my son when I get my Leaf, I'm not going to pay to have it fixed by pros. It's a 1998. Too expensive to fix something that old. It has numerous other small, mostly cosmetic, problems, although it runs great. I'll wait for this to dry, see if I need to apply another coat of touch-up paint, and wax again.