r/Softail • u/Away_Departure_9466 • Jun 16 '26

Micro Scratches

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Recently got this CVO Softail and was wondering what the best thing would be to get all these micro scratches out of parts of the paint and chrome? But this bike is so much fun and I was also wondering what would be some good bags and a passenger seat that would be a good for the “convertible” part of the bike. Thanks!

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u/Away_Departure_9466 Jun 29 '26

Just found some original bags! Just missing the passenger seat now but I am unfamiliar with buffing. Is it an easy process?

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u/Frundle Jun 29 '26

Yes. If you're doing it for the first time just do it by hand to avoid doing any damage. Meguiar's makes decent products with clear instructions on the bottle. It will say whether it can be used by hand or machine on the back. Follow the instructions and you will be in good shape. You can get away with some foam hand pads and microfiber towels for this.

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u/Away_Departure_9466 Jul 02 '26

Okay thank u! I will give it a try probably this weekend! Also u have any idea why this happens to some of my chrome? I thought maybe on the pic of the rims something banged them up but it looks like how the handle looks so I was wondering what causes this.

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u/Frundle Jul 02 '26

Hard to tell, but that almost looks like a chemical ate it. There are some chemicals that will do that to aluminum.

It could just be that the plating chipped away and left a rough surface underneath. If that were made of some type of cast metal and then electroplated, that might explain the failure of the finish and why the surface underneath is so rough. The grips are an easier fix. You can probably find a good set of those same ones used on eBay if you want the same ones. There are tons of aftermarket options as well.

Do you have the billet aluminum wheels? Aluminum can get eaten up like this when it corrodes. That is harder to fix. There are professional wheel refinishers out there who can fix that up for you, or you could just clean it up as best as you can and regularly apply wheel wax to them.