Automotive Journal

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.

Don’t get me wrong - if you have a big, deep scratch, touch-up paint is probably appropriate. But I don’t recommend that an average person uses it. First of all, it’s very hard to apply correctly unless you’re experienced. Second of all, it’s usually overkill. There are other methods of reducing the appearance of a scratch that are easy and relatively cheap.

The best way to fix a light scratch is called “wet sanding”. Essentially, a paint pro will do an EXTREMELY light sanding on the scratch which will reorganize the paint/clear-coat molecules and make the scratch “disappear” — provided of course the scratch isn’t too big or too deep.

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 answer to both of the questions above is “no”, then you’ve got a light scratch in your new car and fixing it is easy. Go to a local body shop, preferable one with a written guarantee, and ask them for an estimate. Expect to pay around $40.

One last thing - these are only methods to reduce or diminish a scratch, not to truly repair it. A true repair would involve a new paint job for the scratched panel and paint blending for the nearby panels, and I think that’s a terrible idea to fix a light or even heavy scratch. It’s better to fix these things inexpensively - they’re just going to happen again. Just remember, the scratch isn’t going to miraculously disappear. It will look a LOT better though.