My V70 is also black and a royal pain to keep looking good. Not only is the paint thinner on the newer cars, so is the thickness of the steel. Never lean on these cars, they will dent. Especially if you have a lot of coins in your pocket and lean over the fender to check something in the engine compartment.

All of the cars have a double layer of clear paint on top of the pigmented paint. This is excellent protection to the color, but the clearcoat scratches easily. Fortunately, it also buffs out easily. The minor scratches can be over sprayed with clear coat and buffed to make the scratches go away.

A good layer of paste wax will add a hard layer of protectant to your paint, making it less suscepticle(sp) to scratches and bird droppings. And it depends a lot on the type of bird and the composition of the dropping as to what kind of damage will be done.

Klaus