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You’re opening the car door. You glance down at the fender and you see it — A SCRATCH! You mutter under your breath “THIS is why I can’t have anything nice” as your new car lays damaged before you. But fear not! It can be fixed.
ABSOLUTELY NOT! Touch-up paint is one of the worst things you can do.
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.
How do you know if it’s too big? Are we talking about a scratch you can easily feel with a fingernail? Is it the length of a whole body panel? Can you see metal in the scratch? If any of the above is true, you have what is considered a deep scratch and the solution is to take it to your local body shop. If your car has been keyed and/or an entire panel is scratched, you may need to call your insurance company. The cost of repairing deep scratches can range, from $40 to thousands — make sure you get a few quotes if it’s much more than $100.
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.
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