Well, after almost 2 years I got my first scratch yesterday morning. I was sitting in a turn lane and there was a bunch of crap in the road. A car went by two lanes over and shot a piece of debris up and nailed my rear passenger quarter panel. Any ideas of the best way to fix it. Can I do a good job with touch up paint or do I need to take it to a shop? If I do go to a body shop can they just fix the scratch or will they have to paint the whole panel? Any advise would be appreciated.

 

Ohhhhh no! I don't know man, that's really really deep. You can definitely try to fill in most of it with touch up paint though. I've had a scratch like that before on my rear bumper cover on an older car. Touched it up, but still didn't like it, so I took it to be resprayed.

Good luck!

 

You could try priming the area, using touch up paint and then Langka blob remover to get rid of the excess paint. Had to do that on some cars that had deep scratches like that.

 

Should note that there most likely will be a slight difference in colour so you might still see where you had filled it in but it really shouldn't be that bad.

 

^what he said, remember take your time, and do it right

 

Just don't let it sit too long before you put some primer on it. If you can't find primer in a touch up stick (rare) just get spray primer. Spray some into the cap, dip a toothpick in it and apply a few layers to the exposed metal. Use gray or white primer, not the red stuff.

 

what about taping it off on the edges of the scratch and then spraying it with primer?

 

Take it to the best body shop you can find. If It's only paint, it shouldn't cost more than a couple of hundred bucks.

 

that could prob be fixed with some touch up paint but id let a professional do it. if you decide to tackle it and end up making it worse it could cost you more money in the end. try to find a professional detailer that does paint correction and get a quote. if you can get ur hands on some grabber orange touchup from the factory, it could be painted in with a brush, sanded and then buffed. chances are it wont look perfect but it DEF will look alot better than it does and you prob wont even be able to see it unless you point it out.

i know its a HUGE cliche but **** happens. ive tried to keep my mustang perfect but some stuff just is unavoidable. just gotta roll with the punches (another horrible cliche.......im just full of em!)

 

I'd take it to a shop. Might cost a bit but at least it will be professionally repaired and you will not have to mess with touch up paint. I don't do well with touch up paint.

 

Your car is too nice for you to mess with it. Take it to a good paint shop or go back to the dealer they usually have a touch up guy come in once a week to fix new car dings and chips[fixed a scratch on our 03 Grand Marquis while I waited and it looked perfect]only charged me $50.00.

 

And you'll sleep better at night knowing that you did the right thing

 

Unless your very skilled and patient touch up will probably not come out too great. I had my rear bumper scratched down to the plastic, they removed it and resprayed the whole thing. The body shop said it would not look right to just do that section. Shouldn't be too expensive, but really it depends on how you feel about it. If you don't want to resent having a scar on your car then it I'd say take it to a shop, if it's not that big a deal for you, try the touch up kits and the blob remover stuff. Atleast if you don't care for how the touch up came out, your not out too much money.

 

As nice as your car is, I would take it to a good body shop. Get it fixed right and try to forget it ever happened. If you don't have it fixed professionally your eyes will gravitate to that spot every time you look at your car. We all know how much a first ding or scratch hurts, and we all feel for you. Good Luck!

 

I still say do it yourself. The scratch is not that big. Afterall, after you buy the langka blob eliminator and touch up paint you are out what, 40 bucks? If you don't like it once you are done, then I would take it to a body shop but the reason I wouldn't do that for such a small scratch is because they will paint the entire panel and I don't care what anyone says, aftermarket paint does not hold up like factory paint does. My car gets several stone chips now that it has been repainted compared to when it was the factory finish. I know I wouldn't repaint an entire body panel just because of a 1" scratch.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions everybody. I ordered the Langka kit and some touch up paint and I will give it a shot. I figure if I'm not happy with the results(and there's a good chance I won't be) I can always have it professionally done later. I am looking at aftermarket hoods so I don't what to go to the body shop twice. If I don't like it I will get it redone when I do the hood but at least for now it will be protected from the elements. I will post the results up when I do the work. The Langka will be here today but I haven't gotten the paint yet so it will probably be several days before I have everything. Thanks again for all the replies and suggestions, I appreciate it!

 

+1

I totally agree. No matter how good the paint shop, there is nothing like the factory paint. It is painted by robots, where the paint thickness is uniform down to microns. And before it is even painted, there is the electrostatic bonding process that adheres the underlying primer to the body electrically.

Another bad thing that happens when a panel is painted at a body shop is overspray. A few years back, the rear hatch of my wife's Santa Fe was keyed when the car was less than a week old. We brought it back to the dealer's body shop, where they thought the best thing would be to paint the entire rear door. The door itself came out pretty good - but when they sprayed the clearcoat, there was overspray all over the car. We didn't notice it at first (because it's clear, duh), but when driving in direct sunlight the overspray on the windshield was actually difficult to see through! When we ran our hands over the glass, it was covered with tiny bumps... We brought the car back, and they had to scrape the entire windshield with a razor scraper. Unfortunately, there was really nothing they could do about the rest of the car that had clearcoat overspray, but fortunately, it was mostly on the roof. Maybe a better shop would have been more careful, but I'm just saying this was all because of a 6" scratch on the rear door.

 

I agree, they will paint the entire panel over again and it wont look right. Take it from me....I have Grabber Orange too. About 9 months ago my car was keyed. Every panel on the car (and I mean EVERY panel) I brought it to my Ford dealer. They sanded down the entire car. Where the scratches were they took it down to primer, re primed and then put 2 coats of color over the entire car and then 3 coats of clear. Problems I've had after the rapairs:

1. Alot more rock chips, I say its from the poor adhesion to the factory coat. In some places it chipped but still shows perfect color because it shipped the new layer and the old Orange is showing through.

2. When I go to shows and other Grabber Orange cars are there you can tell there is a massive color difference between the new paint job and the factory paint on someone else's car. Mine seems to be lighter in orange.

Granted I had no choice but to repaint the whole car, and luckily so because I would hate for the repainted sections to not match (atleast the whole car is a uniform color and you can only tell the difference parked next to another GO) But the factory job is MUCH tougher in my opinion.

 

Check to see if there is a "Colors on Parade" outfit in your area. They come to your home just like the PDR (Paintless Dent Repair) folks do. I've heard great things about them in our area. If they do a great job it will save you having to repaint the entire quarter panel. Check with some of your local dealerships...that's where you'll find them hanging out.

 

Good choice on the Langka IMO. I've used it for multiple rock chips. I feel for you though. I've pretty much given up on my front bumper from all of the rock chips. told the wife in a year or two I want stripes and I'll have it repainted along with stripes.Good luck!