I parked my car at a car park the other day and came back to see that the entire passenger side had been keyed to the metal.
I got a few quotes from panel beaters. They wanted over $1000. Of course they do it properly and have the panels sanded back, all the door handles removed and resprayed etc.
The touch up guys wanted $500, for a quick and dirty.
I also considered going through my insurance, but that would mean an increase in premium next year even though I keep my rating 1. And i have to pay an excess.
I gave my DIY a try because i had nothing to lose. If it came out worse, then i was going to get it done at the panel beaters anyway.
Here is how i fixed it with before and after pictures for those interested in the DIY. It turned out quite well. I am quite fussy and it passes for me. If you really try, you will still see it, but if you weren't told, you won't know it's there.
Steps:
1. Wash the scratched area with prepsol and let it dry.
2. Apply touch up paint (I find auto paint stores that mix on the spot match better than factory touch up bottles. Especially for Honda's). Make sure you apply carefully directly onto the scratch using a fine brush. Buy one from a craft store, don't use the one the paint comes with. It's too fat. I did 2 thin coats. Let it dry 10 mins in between coats. Don't worry if if blobs up a little bit, that's what we want. But make sure it's not all over the place though because that will make step 4 harder. This step takes patiences depending on how long the scratch is.
3. Apply clear coat. I bought good quality clear coat in a can. Sprayed it into the lid and used it with a fine brush i bought from the craft store. 2 thin coats. Let it dry 10 mins between each coat. Let final coat dry overnight. Note. At this stage, it looks crap!
4. I had a meguiars clay bar kit. Spray the lubricant onto the touched up areas and rub the clay bar over it to smooth out the blob. This also takes a lot of patients and elbow grease, but the efforts are worth it in the end. It took me around 30 minutes per scratch 50cms long. The clay bar is normally used to remove contaminants of the surface of the paint. In this case, it does no damage the paint but removes the touch up paint until it is level with the cars original paint. For the first 5-10 mins you might feel nothing is happening. Trust me, keep going and you will soon start to see the results. Focus on a small section at a time. When you start to see specs of touch up paint on the clay bar, make sure you fold it over or move it to another side. I cut up the original clay bar, so i had more little pieces to work with the size of a fifty cent coin.
5. Once clay bar has been done give the area a wash, rinse and dry.
6. Polish and buff.
7. Wax and buff.
8. Sit back and admire your hard work.
Before
After (Note, I added a few pics to show reflections of my garage door, so you can see there's no more scratch!)
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