Sandpaper! Help I ruined my car :(

[lukemk5gti]

So I'm normally very good when it comes to working on my car but I made a mistake last month and now I need help!

Somebody scratched the corner of my car in a car park a while back so I masked off and sprayed over.

The new spray layer was too thick so I sanded back down to paint but here is where it went wrong.

I used 1200grit which wasn't fine enough by the looks of it so now I've scratched off the glossy outer layer.

I went at it afterwards with proper scratch removers and polishes etc. but it hasn't fixed it.

The photo is not doing it much justice but there's a clear circle of haziness where I sanded and it feels soft to the touch (not slippy and glossy like the rest of the car).

Has anybody done this before. I don't want to commit to a body shop and respray the entire bumper!

[dansmith180]

Normally for a bad scuff or scratch you would use 1500 paper then 2000 then 3000 and start polishing after that, so I would try going over it again with a finer paper like 2000, then some 3000 then use a polish, no polishing compound on its own will bring up 1200 grit paper marks. Hope this helps 

[xjay1337]

You started way too aggressive... Try 1500, then 2000, then 2500, then 3000 then you would be able to polish it up with any decent compound and then refine it.
That is assuming you haven't taken the new paint off...

[1.8T Chap]

Yeah, agree with the above comments work your way up to 3000 grit which you can then take out with decent compound as the scratches will be fine enough to remove and then stick some polish over the top for protection.

[lukemk5gti]

Thanks for the help, I'll try that with the sandpaper. My fear is that I went too far with the 1200 grit and now I've taken off the top later so I'll never get that shine back? It this is the case is there anything I can do?

[GTI-Ross]

Thanks for the help, I'll try that with the sandpaper. My fear is that I went too far with the 1200 grit and now I've taken off the top later so I'll never get that shine back? It this is the case is there anything I can do?

If you cant fix it, any decent body shop could repair that for you mate, just a bit of blending needed.

[Viking]

Thanks for the help, I'll try that with the sandpaper. My fear is that I went too far with the 1200 grit and now I've taken off the top later so I'll never get that shine back? It this is the case is there anything I can do?

Surely you mean wet & dry, not sandpaper?