scratch (keyed)

[radkonn]

My friend's car got keyed, and I have a few questions on the repair. He took it to the dealer and they gave him touch up paint. I don't think the scratch went all the way through the clear coat, so I'm guessing that touch up paint will make it look worse. Right? I thought you only use touch up paint when the defect goes all the way through to the primer. I asked him if he took it to the dealer's autobody shop, and he said that a guy looked at it that didn't work for the dealer. I'm guessing he was an outsourced detailer. I'm planning on just hitting it with scratchx, if the defect doesn't go all the way through the clear coat. What do you guys think.

[radkonn]

The car is lightly keyed all the way down the side. If I use scratchx down the long scratch, will it look different? In other words, will there be a distinct, noticeable, difference since the clear coat where scratchx was applied will be lowered?

[travisdecpn]

The area you did with scratchx will probably look better than those around it. You may want to do the whole car with #80 after you finish the repair on the scratch and put a couple of layers of NXT on it so the whole car is swirl free. As far as the clearcoat being lowered, I don't think you will be able to see any discernable difference, unless your eyes are able to see down to the tenth of a mil.

[scrub]

sorry to hear about that. I detailed an 05 Stang that was freshly keyed. I used scratchX on the scratch and it greatly reduced the appearance. It wasn't gone but it was visible improved.

If I understand your second question, I don't think you'll see a difference between the area you applied scratchX and the rest of the finish as far as the clear coat goes.

Good luck

[radkonn]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try scratchx on it, if it only went through the clear coat. Am I right about not putting on touchup paint unless it goes through the base coat? It wouldn't make sense to me to put it on just the clear. Also, do they make a clear coat touch up paint? If they do, does it work? The car is only 5 months old, and it is white. Thus, I don't know if I will be able to see any swirls, but I just received my package from Meguiars (80, 83, trim detail, backing plate kit, and a gallon of Gold Class car wash). Therefore, I can always try out my new pc.

[Buellwinkle]

If the damage does go all the way through and buffing/polishing doesn't do it, try the Turtlewax color wax and lipstick combo, it works great on keyed cars. Did it on a very heavily keyed red Mitsubishi and it looked great from 5' away. You rub the lipstick perpendicular to the scratch and it fills it in with color, then you use the color wax to fill in the less noticible scratches. It's temporary until the wax eventually wears away but the alternative is a repaint.

[TexDetailer]

If the scratch is through the paint, no rubbing is going to help, and having to paint an entire part of the car for one scratch doesn’t sound good either so here is what I did, worked great!!

1) I got some black touchup paint, but the one with the ballpoint tip. Shake it real good and do your first few strokes on paper to get the ball point coated. I tried all the other touch up paint tricks, forget it. Trying to fill it in with the brush or toothpick, etc. is a nightmare, but this was like wring on paper when it comes to thin scratches, nice clean line with hardly no overlap of the good paint. Do at least 2 coats, 30min dry after each coat.

2) After that I used some Mothers Chip repair kit if your touchup is above the surface of the paint and seems to work well in leveling the touchup paint out, and less scarry then wet sanding. I then wash the and dry the area again after this step.

3) I then do several applications of ScatchX, following with a good polish and a good coat of gold class wax.

Unless you bend down eye level with it, and your nose about 6 inches from it, its all but disappeared, and it used to be a 2 inch scratch all the way through the paint!! You can not spot it anymore doing a walk around, even though I know where it is!

[Rob66]

This is going to sound crazy

But a possible temp solution is to get a permanent marker pen and go over what is left of the scratch after you have used the Scratch X.

I've tried this on stone chips on the bonnet of my black car and although not perfect looks alot better than some touch-up paints i've seen.

Rob

[rusty bumper]

Hi radkonn,

From what you've described, the keyed area would benefit greatly from using ScratchX.

I would also try #80 with a PC to blend in the area (Might as well do the whole side too).

If that doesn't work, then #83/ PC combo should make it even less noticeable.

I'm thinking that a car with white paint would be easier to buff out & hide a defect like that? (As long as it's not too deep)

A darker color car might be a different story though.

[radkonn]

Thanks for all the replies. The car is in Tampa, so it will probably be a few weeks before I see it. I have to go there anyways. In the mean time, I'll practice using my pc on my cars.