Just over a month ago, I noticed a 2-3 inch scratch on the fender of my Mustang GT. To me it seems like a key mark. I had some Ford Motorcraft touch-up (vista blue metallic) paint that I purchased from the dealer, so I used it to touch it up. After it dried up, I noticed that it was significantly brighter than the color of my mustang . I wanted to know if there was any way of making the place where I touched up my paint darker so it will match the color of my car?

 

Take your car to a good body shop and have them color match to your car. Touch up paint off the shelf will never match perfectly. As for making it darker, maybe time will help.

 

Only a body shop is going to get it right. Touch up paint doesn't come close.

 

I heard the best way to apply touch up is to lightly wetsand it after it dries and then buff and polish the area to make it blend.

 

Scratches that large are going to stand out when you use touch up paint. Wetsanding does help, but in the right light, it'll always stand out. I only use touch up paint on the small nicks on the nose or the door edge. If you can afford it, go to the body shop.

 

Thanks guys for the help.

 

Check to see if there is a "Colors on Parade" in your area. They will come to your home (just the Paintless Dent Repair Folks) and are usually very good at repairing scratches without having to do an entire repaint of the panel.

http://colorsonparade.com/

 

did you try this before you painted over it.... Use Maquires car cleaner wax on ANY soft scratch... These would be the kind from finger nails, keys, pocket knives, rivets on your jeans and snaps on your jacket, not to mention the metal zippers on your hoodies.. These scratches are not deep enough to get into the body color of the paint, nor into the primer or bare metal, but they art scratches none the less.

And also most any paint transfer say from another car door or bumper to bumper contact. The special abrasives in the cleaner wax removes these light scratched and paint transfers. Not to mention it makes a white car even whiter by removing all the road grime, and acid rain that turns the paint gray. (yes it will do that with other colors, but ive seen it most on the white cars)

If you happen to have a scratch deep into the paint, then you could try to wet sand it. The higher the grit the better. Once smooth, buff polish and wax.

If the scratch is down to the primer or to bare metal, your looking for the Pros to fix that...

But now that you have painted it, the car cleaner wax could also remove what you put on, and perhaps polish out the scratch you tried to cover.

 

Vista is also a PIA to match right anyway. I've done the same technique on a few other cars wetsanding touch up paint and it always turned out decent. I haven't been able to get the vista blue to look right yet. Actually the satin silver in my stripes is a pain too. I ended up having to have a stripe partially repainted over a screw-up

 

I would never wet sand my car. Absolutely never. I would eff that sht up so bad hahaha.