Someone Just Scratched Your New Car - Now What?

You've just exited the store and are striding confidently towards your new car when you notice something isn't right — the paint is SCRATCHED! You look around, hoping to see the culprit, vainly wishing they were still around so you could vent your rage. Then, you walk up to the scratch hoping it will "rub-off". Alas, that doesn't work either. What do you do next — get out the touch-up paint?

For God's sake NO! The sound of the words "touch-up paint" always make me cringe.

10% of the time, touch-up paint is the right way to fix a scratch. If the scratch is large, if bare metal is showing, and if the scratch is a circular area the size of a fingernail, touch-up paint is the way to go. But I don't think anyone who isn't a pro should use touch-up. It's hard to apply, and most of the time it's overkill.

The best way to fix a light scratch is called "wet sanding". Essentially, a paint pro will do an EXTREMELY light sanding on the scratch which will reorganize the paint/clear-coat molecules and make the scratch "disappear" — provided of course the scratch isn't too big or too deep.

How do you know if it's too big? Are we talking about a scratch you can easily feel with a fingernail? Is it the length of a whole body panel? Can you see metal in the scratch? If any of the above is true, you have what is considered a deep scratch and the solution is to take it to your local body shop. If your car has been keyed and/or an entire panel is scratched, you may need to call your insurance company. The cost of repairing deep scratches can range, from $40 to thousands — make sure you get a few quotes if it's much more than $100.

If the scratch is light, your local body shop should be able to fix it up for less than $40. Make sure the shop you're going to us has a written guarantee and that you understand it. Usually the person repairing your car will tell you what it's going to look like when they're done.

Finally, make sure you realize that either one of the above methods will greatly diminish the appearance of the scratch, but the scratch can't truly be "fixed". It's never going to look the way it did before. Hopefully though it will be too hard for anyone else to see it and no one will know about it but you.