Fixing a New Car Scratch with Touch-Up Paint
You’ve just exited the store and are striding confidently towards your new car when you notice something isn’t right — the paint is SCRATCHED! You look around, hoping to see the culprit, vainly wishing they were still around so you could vent your rage. Then, you walk up to the scratch hoping it will “rub-off”. Alas, that doesn’t work either. What do you do next — get out the touch-up paint?
For God’s sake NO! The sound of the words “touch-up paint” always make me cringe.
10% of the time, touch-up paint is the right way to fix a scratch. If the scratch is large, if bare metal is showing, and if the scratch is a circular area the size of a fingernail, touch-up paint is the way to go. But I don’t think anyone who isn’t a pro should use touch-up. It’s hard to apply, and most of the time it’s overkill.
Most scratches can be fixed with a process called “wet-sanding”. Wet sanding is done by a professional, and it involves moving paint and clear coat molecules around to reduce the appearance of a scratch. It works on light scratches, but deep scratches are another matter.
You can find out if your new scratch is big or deep with a couple of simple tests. When you gently pass your fingernail over the scratch, can you feel a bump? Does the scratch stretch over the entire length of the vehicle or of an individual body panel? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes”, then you need to see a body shop and you may need to call the insurance company. Big or deep scratches can be expensive to fix, but not always. Make sure to check around.
If the scratch is light, your local body shop should be able to fix it up for less than $40. Make sure the shop you’re going to us has a written guarantee and that you understand it. Usually the person repairing your car will tell you what it’s going to look like when they’re done.
Finally, make sure you realize that either one of the above methods will greatly diminish the appearance of the scratch, but the scratch can’t truly be “fixed”. It’s never going to look the way it did before. Hopefully though it will be too hard for anyone else to see it and no one will know about it but you.
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