I had a new refrigerator delivered in the morning, and by evening it had scratches all over it! Yikes! This was from magnets. I was sick to my stomach all night long! Rule #1: Never put anything on the face of a stainless steel appliance! Stainless steel is a rather soft metal alloy (compared to some other metals). The magnets themselves didn't scratch it, but the micro-particles of dirt did. Anything held tightly to the metal will scratch it. Even if you put some tape or cloth between the magnet and the metal… The scratches were at eye level, so whatever solution I embarked on to remove the scratches demanded much care. Several posts talked about solutions to stoves and sinks, which are, by their nature, *expected* to get scratched up a million times over. Removing scratches from a refrigerator is a whole different animal! I began by checking out this forum and several others and even watching a couple of videos. None of them worked as prescribed and I'm about to tell you why. Every stainless steel appliance is different. Some faces are harder than others. Some have a heavy brushed look. Other don't or to a noticeably lesser extent. So the optimal solution for my refrigerator will be different than the optimal solution for my dishwasher, etc. So what I learned through this process is that it is just that -- a process. You will have to experiment. There is no silver bullet for an answer. I tried an abrasive hand cleaner, chrome polish, polishing compound, and steel wool and Scotch-Brite with WD-40. I will talk about each of these shortly, but first, I can't stress enough HOW IMPORTANT IT IS to rub in the SAME direction as the existing grain buffed into the finish at the factory. It is easy and perhaps habitual to hand rub in an arc, oval, or circular motion -- no matter what product you use. You must discipline yourself to rub in straight lines only -- the same direction as the grain. I also found it wise to use a wood block (or other rigid object) for evenness in the rubbing rather than the uneven pressure of my fingers. So in every case, I used a cloth with some product applied to it and wrapped it around a small wood block which I held in my hand. The abrasive hand cleaner improved the scratches, but didn't remove them completely -- even after about 5 applications, wiping it off and using Stainless Steel cleaner and polish after each. I needed something more abrasive. Next, I used Turtle Wax Chrome Polish. This is a micro-abrasive paste. It was more effective in removing the scratches and the rag turned black from the fine particles of steel rubbing off onto my rag, but it had an unfortunate side effect. It’s grain was too fine for my refrigerator, and it was obvious where I rubbed and buffed with the chrome polish. It appeared darker in that area. That region was now more polished and lost some of the brushed look of the rest of the finish, and so it was obvious that I tried to fix the problem. Now, I not only had to remove the scratches, but I had to add back the brushed look of the stainless steel. I will never use chrome polish again, except perhaps... on chrome! Next, I tried Turtle Wax Polishing Compound which is a little rougher-grit paste than chrome polish. This wasn’t as effective at removing the scratches -- although by now, they were only half as deep. What I liked about the polishing compound, though, is that it brightened the dark region somewhat and restored the brushed look that was removed with the chrome polish. I still felt like I needed something with a little more abrasiveness, though. Next I tried steel wool soaked in WD-40. This was totally ineffective. So was the Scotch-Brite. It needed more bite. Perhaps trying steel wool without the lubricant (WD-40) would be better, but I didn’t try it. But I’m converging on a solution. I want to go out and buy rubbing compound, which is a step more coarse of a grit than polishing compound. But I haven’t and I won’t, and here’s why… My refrigerator developed two other unrelated mechanical problems and the manufacturer will be replacing my refrigerator tomorrow. With this in mind, I didn’t want to work on the scratches any further in the event I messed it up and didn’t have time to rectify it. So, I’m sorry to leave the readers hanging, but I feel very optimistic that rubbing compound is going to be the most effective -- for may particular refrigerator -- in both getting out the scratches, and leaving a finish that is very similar to the factory’s brush look. But keep in mind that experimentation is key. Rubbing compound may not be the best product for, say, my dishwasher, which was made by a different manufacturer. I hope this helps!

Try cross posting this on the Kitchen forum. Lots of Wolf owners over there.

By all means pay heed to mrclancy's advice. Any time stainless steel is traumatized by carbon steel, there are iron molecules transferred into the surface of the stainless, and they will rust. There is brass "steel wool" but brass isn't hard enough to make any change int he stainless steel surface. If you use a light touch, you can improve surface blemishes in stainless steel using an angle grinder with a stainless steel cup brush. Also, if you have an angle grinder, welding supply houses can fix you up with surface conditioning pads with hook and loop attachments to a circular pad which goes on the grinder shaft. Walter makes a kit which has a pad holder, tow or three different textures of pads, and a felt burnishing pad. As kudzu mentioned, you won't be able to bring your repair to exactly match the undamaged area, so you might be in for a project which will involve going over the entire cook top to make it all match.

It is ridiculous, agreed. But it's a function of being caught in this massive change over of technologies and manufacturing of home products and pretty much everything I suppose. Take oven cleaner. My first stoves didn't have self-cleaning ovens. Then those came along and oven cleaner wasn't really necessary. Now we have self-clean ovens that sometimes don't work well, or fry the electronics, or cause the enamel oven interiors to crack off -- even in the highest end brands. So don't use oven cleaner and don't use self-clean either! I know you've read those Wolf oven threads. They are doing reupholstery when they should be rebuilding and rethinking. And a majority of the engineers who are designing this stuff are mostly men while the majority of users are women. Due to media, we see high end looks a lot but need them at a better price. SZ, or Miele & Gaggenau are using sheet stainless but more affordable brands can't use it and to hold a price point. The coating technology is extremely good now (at least the faucet folk claim that) so they are coating and selling it as stainless and marketing it with cutsey names that sound to the average person like stainless with some type of specialized treatment. Yes, we are getting specialized treatment. Re the paper towel thing. I cannot imagine why a manufacturer would say no paper towels for the inside of a fridge. Curious which brand it is. And has the person who was told this asked for an explanation about why not? I know that from my interaction with various manufacturers I hear some pretty dumb things from them and some things that just aren't true. Again, microfiber towels work better than anything else I've tried, including paper towels, for cleaning in general. I use yellow and blue for regular cleaning and reserve the green ones for kitchen use only -- no cross use. I wash them in hot (140F) water or on sanitize (165F) if heavily used. Ain't no germs livin in those towels after that. And if it's not a washer where the hot water temperatures are precise, just saturate with alcohol before washing.