Had this posted in details, but it didn't get any hits
I know this isn't the right place, but I'd like some input:

Well, to make a long story short, while driving on a narrow Boston street I grazed a parked car. The car owner is fine, almost no damage to her car, but I managed to get two pretty deep scrapes the length of my car, between the tires. At some points the scratches go down at least to the primer, at others they're right on the surface.
I tried putting on some touch up paint to see how that would work, but it doesn't fix them well enough.
I'm now trying to decide if I should try sanding the area down and using a spray applicator to more evenly repaint the scratches.
What do you guys think? Good idea or not?
If I take it to a body shop, any idea how much this would cost to repair?
Thanks

 

Sorry about your little accident. If your paint is down to primer or worse metal I'm afraid to tell you but thats a paint job dude! If scratched paint down to primer for much of a panel, that whole panel will need repainting. This will cost at least 300 or more dollars but hey man you need to get your ride back to normal! Goodluck!

 

I have a couple of scratches on my passenger side door. They are only a an inch or two long, but fairly deep. I got two estimates from body shops and I talked to someone about another company that is a mobile paint repair ( www.colorsonparadeoc.com ).

One of the body shops quoted me $800 and another $450. Colors on parade quoted me $250 or so (they haven't seen the car). Someone here said not to use them because they airbrush over the scratch and it will wear away in a couple of years. Whereas the body shop uses some other method (like baking the paint on maybe). Good luck and if you decide to use Colors on Parade, let me know how it turns out.

 

imo, take it to a bodyshop. it may cost more but it will be done properly.

 

Yeah, I figured a body shop would be the best bet.
Thing is that the scratches are so thin that they're not noticeable unless you're really close - 8 feet or so.... that plus the fact that I'm sure there are things like door dings in my future make it tough to spend $500 on something like that...
I've got my car back in to the dealer today to fix some of the stuff they didn't fix correctly last time - I asked those monkeys to give me an estimate, so we'll see what they say.
Thanks.