ckyliu

If you have one, leaf blower!

I recommend and oily diminishing polish and a medium foam pad, just be careful with heat build up in the pad, swap it periodically. VAG paint is pretty hard so anything too gentle won't make much difference! As the below are oily, you will need to clean up after with panel wipe or IPA to see how you got on. Polish one-step gentler option: Scholl S20 Black 1 Step Compound or Sonax EX 04-06 Polish more aggressive option (may need a second pass with something above to refine): Scholl S3XXL, Koch H8.02 or Meguiars Ultimate Compound Pads: At a minimum you'll want a couple of medium polishing pad but as I say, VAG paint is hard, so might need a cutting pad if the paint is bad. A pad with minimal cut for refining and application of waxes and glazes should also be hond. Chemical Guys Hex (orange then blue on hard German paint, green then black on softer Japanese paint), Scholl Spider (blue or purple, then oranges) and Meguiars Pro pads are all highly recommended. Wool and microfibre pads are more aggressive, generate more heat and more difficult to clean out whereas foam ones are a little gentler so suit beginners better. Remember to prime the pad first and spread polish across your working area (typically 2 ft x 2 ft but oily polishes will let you do upto a quarter bonnet) before whacking up the speed. Once primed you'll only need 3 pea sized blobs of polish, which should be worked until they go from milky to clear, that might take 3-4 minutes, anything more than that is probably pointless; 4+ passes (2 vertical, 2 horizontal, overlap your lines by 50%) moving at 1-2" per second across the same area, applying a little pressure and you should be good to go.

Autoglym's Fast Glass, inside and outside. Awesome stuff. Spray on, wipe before it all flashes (ideally with a microfibre but kitchen towel will do) and it's job done.

300gsm+ Korean edgless plush microfibres, such as: https://www.in2detailing.co.uk/products/16-x-16-plush-350gsm-yellow-korean-microfibre-edgeless-car-detailing-cloth https://www.in2detailing.co.uk/products/16-x-16-plush-400gsm-korean-edgeless-microfibre-cloth?variant=32816749117519 If you're on a budget there's these below but they do leave some fluff until they've been washed: https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/purestar-light-touch-buffing-pkg-5

One thing to note with leather is it comes in many flavours. Traditional leather such as aniline or nappa will benefit from leather creams, feeding etc and is typically ungrained or only lightly embossed. The leather you get in an average non-premium brand car is not likely to be those types though, it's more likely painted and then plastic coated for more durability. Some of the trim may well be entirely synthetic. Leather creams and feed will just make coated or painted leather sticky and attract dirt since they cannot be absorbed through the plastic coating, and this dirt will wear them out quicker. However, you can be a bit more aggressive cleaning coated/painted leather and throw dilute APC at it with a soft upholstery brush, and then afterwards treat it as you would plastic; I find a solution of CarPRO PERL works well as this leaves a matt, non-greasy finish on all interior plastic and modern leather. I actually use my face degreasing wipes for cleaning my interior leather and pleather and it seems to work well.

Polish makes no difference as it's used to correct defects, it doesn't leave a protective film (AIO products generally leave some protection but you'll be lucky if that lasts much beyond a month). A good wax might provide a little protection, and I expect a ceramic coating might provide a little more, but ultimately you want bird poo off ASAP (generally within 48 hours) before it eat into the clear coat because as you said that won't polish out. To remove guano, a soft cloth soaked in hot water and applied to the droppings for a little while if possible will soften it so it's easier to remove, you don't want to go in scraping it off and scratching everything. And of course, prevention is better than cure so generally avoid parking under trees where possible (also honeydew won't damage paint but it's unsightly and makes it hard to see out!)

If you have to correct yourself by hand, GTechniq P1 Nano works very well with a foam applicator. You will be at it a while though, work it in small circles with some pressure. Have a bottle of water handy to mist on it, this will reactivate the polish. As others have said, machine correction with a dual action (DA) polisher is preferable but you may not have ready access to this and the required pads and compounds. Much will depend on how deep the scratch is, if it's gone all the way through the clear coat the best you will manage is to soften the appearance of it. EDIT: Just realised this is a thread revival 🙄 Hope it worked out for you!

I was given much useful advice at https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/478648-daro-polishing-machine-advice/?tab=comments#comment-5548053 Specific panel wipe chemicals are available but you can use a solution of 10-20% isopropyl alcohol IPA (aka isopropanol) that's nearly as good and a lot cheaper (under £2.50/L once diluted to <20% with distilled water). 4 plush microfibres are recommended for removing the polish before going on with the IPA, the Korean Edgeless 350 gsm plush is cost effective at around £2.50 a towel, there's also Interdetailings Open Pile and Rags Edgeless 300, then flip the cloth over and go in with the IPA spray. Make sure you get all the polish out the shut lines before it bakes in, the edgeless clothes are great for this. Scholl S3XXL, Koch H8.02 or Meguiars Ultimate Compound I would recommend to do a 1 step polish on harder paint with a medium foam pad, work them until they go from milky to clear as they're oily and diminishing. The diminishing should help avoid overdoing it, again using a softer pad will reduce the cutting action too. As these are oily they will need cleaning up afterwards with panel wipe so you can see the final result. I'm not familiar with Menzerna's range so can't advise there but they have a good reputation so I'm sure you'll be fine, if they're oily make sure you panel wipe to check your results, otherwise the oils will fill/mask defects temporarily.

I thought most people who lived on Dartmoor were at Her Majesty's Pleasure and thus have no access to a car 🤣

I wouldn't worry too much about temperature in Devon, it doesn't that cold compared to the Peak District where I ran seversal sets of Pilot Sport 4 on a RWD car all year - yes they drop off a bit when the gritters come out but I only had serious concerns in snow and that will upset any summer tyre. I've ran other UHP summer tyres (e.g. Eagle F1 Assy 5) all year and the only model I've noticed a really rapid drop off with declining temperatures is my current Falken FK512 that seem very unhappy at anything below 10'c. The PS5 has just arrived on UK shores so there's not much feedback on it yet. The PS4S is what they fit to quite a few supercars out the factory so may not be worth the extra cash unless you've got 300 bhp going to the rear tyres... If you are worried about performance in rare light snowfall and if/when temperatures hover around zero, a recent innovation is summer-biased/UHP all-season tyres; Michelin's Pilot Sport All Season 4 comes to mind and pricing is similar to the summer PS4, if you want better snow performance then there's the 3 Peaks Mountain rated M+S Michelin Cross Climate 2. These two models seem to demand the smallest compromise in summer and wet weather performance in exchange for better grip when its colder and could comfortably be run all year in most of the UK. You want to avoid Nordic/Alpine tyres such as Nokian, they are very ice and snow focused and will not work well in Devon's mild climate. To be honest I think any true winter tyre (so not even Nordic) is overkill in Devon, you'd be best running an all-season even just for winter (as would most of England and Wales imo, given their daily mean in Jan/Feb is still above 3'c).

The final result is very dependent on prep beforehand, to make it look shiny it needs polishing to the surface is glass smooth before you go on with waxes. Glaze is a bit of a cheat since it fills in defects rather than permanently correcting them, you get the results a lot quicker but they do wash out! I forgot to mention if you really want black to pop, Poorboys Blackhole show glaze is something of a go to for anyone interested in detailing, great results but longevity is pants outdoors it soon washes off. Autoglym SRP always gets a mention since it goes on very well with hand application, it's an All-In-One (AIO) so very similar to a glaze. There's Autofinesse Tripple too, I have no experience of that but people seem to rate it. With those two AIOs, they will last better if topped with a durable wax, I think that King of Gloss Dark would probably fit the bill but so would the 845 and spray ceramics I mentioned.

I run my pressure washer on max (it isn't adjustable anyway), but it is only a 110 bar machine (previously used 140 bar on my Fabia vRS though). The choice of nozzle and how you use it is more important. I have a low pressure nozzle that I use for the MX-5's mohair/canvas roof, everything else gets the normal fan jet at full whack. Wasn't familiar with Fusso King of Gloss wax but what I've read of it would not sway me away from my current wax of choice, Collinite 845 (which is an easier to use version of Collinite 476S that King of Gloss is often compared to). I'm all about the easy life and longevity, so once I'm out of 845 I'll probably switch to a spray ceramic.

Avon aren't British, haven't been for decades. The factory at Melksham stopped producing car tyres in 2018, they just do motorcycle and race tyres. The brand is currently owned by Cooper (USA), who in turn are owned by an Apollo (India) which have many factories across the globe. I think Goodyear had a go at buying Cooper, so it might be American again by now. Your tyre was probably made in the Far East, as with most budget and mid-range tyres.

Snowfoam requires a dedicated foam lance (the shampoo bottle bundled with pressure washers does not work well) which can be expensive and working out dilution ratios can be complicated; therefore I apply a non-harsh APC (Koch Chemie Greenstar) via handpump garden sprayer to soften dirt on lower areas prior to pressure washing - this isn't as fun and doesn't look as fancy but does the same job with the added bonus that APC can also be used for other stuff like the interior cloth and rubber mats (and my leather sofa indoors!). This is called the "pre-wash" and definitely worth doing, it really reduces the amount of dirt you have to remove during the "contact wash" which is where swirls (fine scratches) occur. Personally I favour Nilfisk pressure washers at the cheaper end of the market as they have aluminium pumps whereas entry-level Karchers are plastic (I think metal starts with the K4). Use a fan jet (never the rotary pencil jet of doom as it'll strip paint), keep the jet moving and work at an angle, never fire it straight into the paint or at seals. I've been using them for over a decade now and the only damage I ever had was on a bad smart repair where the clearcoat hadn't bonded properly, and I suspect it just sped up the failure tbh. Like any powertool, used with a bit of care they're great. For the "contact wash" do not use a sponge, a deep-pile or chenile noodle washmit is the order of the day - Kent car care have some for about £3 online and they're grand. You should rinse the mitt to get grit out of it before dunking it back into the shampoo bucket, you can use a second bucket of cold water for this (aka 2BM) but I prefer to use the low pressure setting of my jet washer. For drying afterwards invest in a good quality drying towel with large twisted loop pile microfiber that is deep, heavy and soft - should be a good choice for under £20. One towel should dry a whole car without wringing, I usually get the worst off with one side of the towel and finish it off with the other. Liquid Elements Silverback XL or Purple Monster Edgeless XL are examples. Chamois leathers are things of the past and that's where they should stay! I've got a step-by-step guide with product names in and application techniques I've written over several years as a guide for myself, I can DM if interested.

You're going to have to be more specific about the product, what "Ceramic Polish" is it you speak of? Like UnderTheRadar said unfortunately “ceramic” is a buzz word that everyone is using now, it covers such a huge range of things it’s almost meaningless beyond saying the product has some silica content that will promote water beading. And "polish" implies no protection abilities, polish is used to correct defects by fine abrasives and sometimes polymer fillers. Any long lasting tough ceramic coating with 3+ year life span requires professional application after machine correction (yes, even on a new car), it's unlikely to be a one day affair but plenty of detailers offer it using a variety of products, so you should find someone local who can get it turned around in a couple of days. Here's a post I did elsewhere last year that you may find helpful, the bit I've bolded in particular: