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How To Fix a Car Paint Scratch

Scratches, chips and other imperfections are just about unavoidable, but a careful repair job can be almost totally invisible. Here's how to fix a paint scratch on your car, step by step.

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Vehicle door, Windshield, Automotive exterior, Glass, Automotive window part, Bumper, Windscreen wiper, Hood, Window, Hand,
Chad Hunt

Options for paint repair range from simple tinted waxes and As-Seen-On-TV miracle pens to multistage treatments matched to your car's exact color. As someone who's capable with a wrench, I went with the latter and tested Automotive Touchup's kit on my pockmarked 1993 Ford Bronco. It costs about $50 depending on which supplies you need, compared to $5,000 for a professional all-over repainting. This collection of aerosol cans and sandpaper is as close as you can get to an appointment at the paint booth. Here's how it works, and whether it's worth it.

Anatomy of a Scratch

Vehicle door, Automotive exterior, Vehicle, Car, Bumper, Hood, Auto part,
Chad Hunt

Unless the car you're repairing is over 20 years old or was custom-painted,­ the paint is almost certainly a clear-coated catalyzed enamel. Artificially hardened by toxic chemicals, it's stable within hours of factory application.

On the other hand, the paint you're applying, whether it's primer, color or clear, is a lacquer. Lacquers dry because the solvent evaporates, leaving the solids behind. While they may feel hard and be sandable within a few minutes, they will continue to shrink for a while. Allow lacquers to dry at least overnight so they can shrink before you add another coat. If you need multiple coats to build up the paint film to full thickness for a repair, one coat a day is best. Of course, be safe. The amounts of solvents used are small, but work in a well-­ventilated area. Make sure to degrease the area with solvent before starting.

Cracking The Code

Diagram, Line, Font,

Somewhere on your car should be the factory-paint code, probably on a sticker or metal plaque under the hood or in the doorsill. This will help a great deal in finding the correct touchup.

If you can't match the color in the display of touchup paints at the auto parts store, your next, albeit expensive, step is the parts counter at the car dealer, at least if you have a car that's less than 10 to 15 years old.

If you're really stumped, an auto paint dealer can custom-mix you a pint; take in a sample, like the gas cap or a mirror. I've also gotten great matches from expresspaint.com and from their motorcycle counterpart, color-rite.com, where you can mail-order touchup pens and bottles, aerosol cans or quarts or larger cans of matched paint.

Clear-Coat Scratch

Yellow, Diagram, Logo, Graphics, Parallel,

Minor scratches, ones that don't go through the clear coat into the color, or areas of low gloss or orange-peel texture can often simply be polished out with compound. Yes, this removes some of the clear coat, so polish the minimum area necessary or you'll have to respray some of that protective top layer. Thoroughly clean the panel after you're done to remove the abrasive compound.

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Base-Coat/Primer Scratch

Yellow, Font, Diagram, Parallel,

You'll need to get some matching paint. This same procedure can be used to repair primer-coat scratches by brushing in a layer of primer first, then sanding the overrun until it covers only the bottom of the scratch. Don't skip that step: You'll have poor adhesion and/or rust.

Supplies

paintcans.jpg
Ida Garland

As with any serious touch-up kit, there are a lot of materials. The box for my black Bronco (color code M1724A) includes prep solvent, rubbing compound, sandpaper of various grits, rubber gloves, a tack rag to pick up dust, pretaped plastic to block messy overspray (like blue painter's tape for your car), and cans of primer, base coat, and clear coat.

It all suggests a lot of work, which turns out to be accurate. I watch one of Automotive Touchup's how-to videos and print out the instructions. I bring everything outside, then pick the most unsightly scratches and a rust spot on the hood. I wipe them with the solvent and rag, then tape a perimeter to protect my cherished Eddie Bauer fender badge.

Step 1: Abrasion

abrasion.jpg
Jamie Wilson

It feels very wrong to lean into your fender with a folded piece of 180-grit, but that's what you have to do. You make the scratch much, much worse before making it better. I get big, horrible white blotches on the Bronco's fender, door, hood, and rear quarter-panel. But it's cathartic, in a way, to grind down to bare metal in the name of making your car beautiful again.

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Step 2: Priming

automotive-touchup.jpg
Ida Garland

On to the sprays. First is the black-tinted sandable primer. It fills in the sandpaper scores with something that resembles the original black, instantly reassuring me.

I add three coats to the metal in total, waiting five to ten minutes for each to dry before applying the next. This is a running theme of touch-up work: Spend two minutes painting and then ten minutes waiting to do another two minutes of painting.

In this manner, a man could, hypothetically, consume several Founders All Day IPAs in the course of a job.

Step 3: Coating

clearcoat.jpg
Ida Garland

Primer gives way to base coat, which means more aerosol cans. Each application seals in the pigment and protective layers beneath. Between sprays, you sand with ever-finer paper.

By the end, you're wet-sanding with 1,500-grit, which feels smoother than a sheet of construction paper. At each interval, you get closer to a factory-finish gloss. The last clear coat finalizes your work with a shiny shell.

Step 4: Results

car-scratch.jpg
Jamie Wilson

The clear coat dries overnight, and I hit my handiwork with the rubbing compound to bring out the shine. And shine it does, which brings me to an unexpected dilemma: The touch-up work looks better than the original paint.

Inevitably, nine layers of new paint look better than decades-old factory black. For the job overall, I say, success. In fact, too much success. The instructions say an all-over wax will help it blend. Final step: Give it hell with the orbital buffer and hope it blends.

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Quick Fix No. 1: Meguiar's ScratchX 2.0

Tire, Automotive wheel system,
Ezra Dyer

Of course, if you're not going to prep and paint a whole section of your car, you can try a scratch removal product like Meguiar's ScratchX 2.0.

The Result: Magic

Water,
Ezra Dyer

Check out two sections of thoroughly scratched Ford tailgate. The right was treated with Scratch X, the left is how the whole thing looked before. It can't address the deeper chips and scratches, but the light stuff is eradicated and returned to a glossy black.

Quick Fix No. 2: A Paint Pen

Bicycle part, Bicycle drivetrain part, Tire, Bicycle tire,
Ezra Dyer

To fix a deep scratch without delving into a full repaint, you can also try a paint pen. This corner of my Bronco looks like it was buffed with an angle grinder, so I bought a Dupli-Color Paint Pen to try to improve the situation.

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Next Step, You Gotta Prep

Automotive exterior, Bumper, Hand, Auto part,
Ezra Dyer

The paint pen comes with an abrasive tip so you can rough up the surface to accept paint. Depending on your car, you might be able to match your exact paint code. But I figured with 26-year old paint, it wasn't an exact match of itself anyway, so I went with Universal Black.

The Result: Not Bad!

Automotive exterior, Auto part,
Ezra Dyer

My brushwork might leave something to be desired (you can use either a pen tip for finer scratches, or a brush for big gouges) but this section looks 100 percent better than it did before. Give it a couple coats and some wax and it'll definitely improve the look—and protect the metal.

Headshot of Ezra Dyer
Ezra Dyer
Senior Editor

Ezra Dyer is a Car and Driver senior editor and columnist. He's now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.

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