Someone Just Scratched Your New Car - Now What? | Cars and Trucks

By JasonLancaster
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Word Count: 384

You're opening the car door. You glance down at the fender and you see it -- A SCRATCH! You mutter under your breath "THIS is why I can't have anything nice" as your new car lays damaged before you. But fear not! It can be fixed.

Often times, your dealer will give you a bottle of touch-up paint with your new car, but this is NOT the time to use it. Touch-up paint is a bad idea 90% of the time.

Unless the scratch is HUGE, touch-up paint in the bottle is a bad idea. It's hard to apply (unless you've got experience) and it's usually overkill. The good news is that there are some methods that will remove or greatly reduce the appearance of the scratch on your new car, and they're surprisingly inexpensive.

For a light scratch, a wet sand is the preferred method. Basically, the paint is sanded with rubbing compound and the surface molecules of the paint are reorganized to fill the scratch and make it disappear. Provided your scratch isn't deep, this is the way to fix it.

You can find out if your new scratch is big or deep with a couple of simple tests. When you gently pass your fingernail over the scratch, can you feel a bump? Does the scratch stretch over the entire length of the vehicle or of an individual body panel? If the answer to either of those questions is "yes", then you need to see a body shop and you may need to call the insurance company. Big or deep scratches can be expensive to fix, but not always. Make sure to check around.

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.

About the Author

Author Jason Lancaster, a car business veteran, developed AccurateAutoAdvice.com. You'll find accurate advice on new car warranties and auto touch up paint.

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