Auto body repair & detailing: paint overspray, paint overspray, clay bar

Question
A company was spray painting water tanks and several of our neighbors and us got overspray. Our 2009 Optima and 2005 Ford f150 got it. The company sent a woman and she worked all day with clay bar and windex. The owner made a minture of motor oil paint thinner and wd40 I think he said. They used mr clean on it. They worked 2 days on my car My car has several scratches on it They buffed and waxed it on the third day. The scratches did not come out. I took it back and they buffed some of the areas again. Could the clay bar have scratched the car. It is on the roof and on the sides pretty badly plus the rubber like stuff around the window looks awful. It has 20,000 miles on it. And I only know of one scratch it had on it by the back door handle abour 3 inches long. They tried to tell me my cat got up on it. but the lines are circular and some of them are on the side below the window. .They did not get all the paint off the black trim. The trucks tundra cover is spotted plus the new sun visor type things are scratched up. You can fell the paint in spots where they could not get it off. Could the clay bars make all these scratches. At one time they had 2 boys come and work on it and I saw him with a blade like you use to cut boxes scrapinf paint off the black bumper of the truck Thanks Shirley

Answer
Shirley;

It sounds like amateurs are working on a serious problem.  A professional would know in short order if clay bar would work to remove the overspray, by testing it on a panel.  If clay bar doesn't work, a professional would try to remove the overspray by cut-polishing.  If that doesn't work, they would then try wet-sanding and polishing a small area.  If none of these methods work, then the affected areas would have to be refinished.

Could the clay bar have created the scratches, you ask?  Yes, if the clay bar is contaminated with grit or sand (that would mean the clay bar has been dropped).  A professional knows that once clay bar is contaminated, it MUST be thrown out!

I agree, your cat would not have made circular scratches on your vehicle.  As for the scratched moldings around the window, if they were scratched by a blade, they will need to be replaced.  Also, if the bumper of the truck was damaged by the blade that was used to scrape off the oversprayed paint, the bumper needs to be refinished.  

You must get your insurance company involved, and let liability fall on the people who were doing the spraying.

Thanks for the question.

Dan.