My baby still has nice gloss with all the pampering and wax jobs I give her but I've noticed some annoying fine scratches popping up here and there and they drive me nuts (stupid highway/trucks!). They are really thin and hardly noticeable unless you go up close but they're just a tad too deep for my fall wax job to blend it.

Is it safe to try a slightly coarser sponge (like the green backside of those yellow/green kitchen sponges to apply some wax and see if it buffs out) or would that do bad things to clearcoat in those areas? Any other tips for these types of scratches?

Thanks for your help!

God no, don't do that. Look into some more aggressive polish. I would really suggest looking into getting an orbital, there are limits to what you can do by hand, and eventually you will reach them

Just buff in some polish and then apply your wax.

You will have swirl city if you use that! Besides the fact a wax will not remove swirls even if you used a orbital and the right pad combo.

You will need a polish to remove any scratches, Menzerna or the like, with a orbital buffer (Portercable one is popular) and some good pads - edge, wolfgang, lake county.

You should also look into correct washing procedure if you haven’t already done so

Andy.

Leave that green sponge in the kitchen, it's good for cleaning pots and pans not your BMW. It actually scratches the pots clean.
You don't have an electric polisher (hence the sponge reference) so you'll have difficulty actually removing the swirls by hand.

One option is to fill them in and you'll want a glaze with lots of fillers. There are quite a few glazes with fillers - Race Glaze, Clearkote RMMG, Autoglym SRP (synthetic resin polish - a glaze and a sealant combined). Do a search for 'glaze' and you'll see more references.
You'll need more than 1 coat of the glaze to fill in the swirls but they will fill in with additional coats.
Finally top with your favourite carnauba.
Don't use that green sponge, you'll be shocked at how much scratching you'll add.
-John C.

Thanks for the replies everyone...I'll buy some glaze/polish and will see how it goes :)