taestee

Okay, i did something REALLY stupid a while ago and while i was turning a tight corner trying to get out of my parking lot, i scraped the side of my car against brick. It left about 5 or 6 horizontal scratches on the door panel and totally F-ed up the molding.

i bought some meguiars scratch-X, and it made it look a lot better, but you can still see the scratches on the clearcoat. if i run my nails perpendicular to them, i can still feel them.

as far as i can tell, it didnt penetrate the clearcoat...

so i was wondering, do you guys have any suggestions for getting rid of the scratches? is there something i can just get for the clearcoat, instead of buying from paintscratch.com?

thanks guys

gohawks63

You may just have to a body shop try to cut into the clearcoat a bit by buffing it out with a rotary buffer.

ChucksCL-S

I think you actually have a good color here to work with. The scratch is in the clearcoat and maybe not in the paint which is under the clear and is FLAT in color, not shiny. The best repair is to take this to a bodyshop and let him try to buff it out. If the scratches are too deep my guess is he will mask off your car and just lightly re-clear the bad part and you'll be good to go. BTW, I'm pretty sure you WDP guys have a tri-coat --- A bright white base coat, then a butter or honey colored translucent mid coat that incudes your metallic flakes (now actually microscopic spheres of 3 or 4 colors) and a protective clearcoat for the shine. As light goes thru your paint it reflects off the white and comes back out thru the mid coat and "bounces" off the spheres giving you the depth you have. Of course bright sunlight looks the best. Hope this helps.

TheBigLaguna

I'd follow what chuckstl says. The same advice is found on the tube of Scratch-X. If it won't eliminate the scratch, seek professional help.

SinnedTL

Dont buff it out, this means that the surrounding area is gonna be buffed downed to the scratch meaning no more clear coat protection...what I would do is do what you would do to a regular scratch...but just buy some clear coat paint and use a toothpick to put some on the scratches...let it dry for at least and hour, and use scratch X and buff it out a little, this will even out the blob of the clearcoat...dont let body shop do too much to it if you said you can only tell by gently rubbing it...

taestee

professional help is the last thing i want to seek since thatll always cost more and i just dont like the idea of my clearcoat being buffed to that degree...

i'll try your idea sinnedTL... i just went down to pepboys but they didnt have any clearcoat paint tho

thanks for the help guys

SinnedTL

I have the Duplicolor clear coat spray can, I just spray some into a small bottle cap or something and dip the toothpick and apply it onto the scratch...make sure you clean the scratch real well with rubbing alcohol so that paint adheres well....then gently buff it with meguiars scratch X or langka....which I use...langka.com...try it out...