Car Keyed

Thomarse · 2008-10-16T07:17:40+00:00

Hi,Went to my car this morning only to find it had been "keyed" -scratched down the drivers side by some ignorant asbo with no respectfor other peoples possesions! I keep my car in my garage at night butit was out on the road for a bit yesterday as I went out in theevening. In such a short space of time (only dark for an hour) it musthave been done!Anyway - does anybody have any good suggestions on how to "repair thescratch? Its not very deep, looks like its taken off the surfacelaquer in a thin line all the way down both doors. Its a very fineline, so doubt it was actually a key that did it, it must have beensomething sharper.Its not seriosu enough to justify claiming insurance and paying theexcess but its enough for me to want to do something about it as thecar was pretty immaculate before this!!!Its a silver metalic paint, would T-cut and elbow grease help to maskit or will I need to do something else?Thanks!

Oct 16, 2008 27 Replies

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The Natural Philosopher 17 years ago

If its only scratched the lacquer, a decent pro repair could be to buff the lacquer down to the paint below, and re lacquer and buff back to blend.

The problems start when the metallic paint itself needs touching up. Its almost impossible to get a fair math with new paint, as the luster depends critically in what direction it was sprayed in the first place.

Even whole panel resprays dont looks as good as the original factory finish.

One of the reason old money tends to drive 15 year old ford sierras and the like ;-)

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Huge 17 years ago

Oh, indeed. But that isn't what you said.

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Huge 17 years ago

Weird. It worked well on both mine.

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Dave Plowman (News) 17 years ago

That's the brand I used. Apart from turning the cloth black no real improvement.

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Bruce 17 years ago

Perhaps you polished it off too vigorously.

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Grimly Curmudgeon 17 years ago

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

Probably not at the moment, iwt. Might be a good time to get such things done and haggle a price.

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srp 17 years ago

I would like to know this too, tcut does not seem to be the answer for me since the scratches are just marks in the clear coat . A good coat of wax helps a bit. Have you got a BMW or something ? ;-)

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Dave Plowman (News) 17 years ago

There are basically two ways to 'remove' a scratch.

Fill it in. Very difficult to get an invisible repair.

Flatten the surrounding paint to the depth of the scratch. This is how T-Cut etc works.

Obviously if the scratch is deeper than the paint layer the second won't work. But neither will the first if the metallic basecoat is damaged.

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