Hey guys, I haven't posted here in a while, as I decided to take a break from all car-related things.

Unfortunately over the last few months of the year my poor X type (daily driver) has gone from being in pretty good/excellent cosmetic shape to a basket case. First, the hood clearcoat started peeling. I already had the roof and trunk repainted earlier in the year, but I just led the hood go. Then, someone decided to key the car the entire length of the drivers side. No I wasn't wrongfully parked in any way or get into an altercation with anyone. Then finally, two of my 17 inch rims cracked and where causing constant flats.

Anyway, after talking myself once again out of a new car, I bought a set of 16 inch OEM rims in very god shape, and I am going to have the body shop repaint the peeling sunburnt hood. He's telling me he can try to wetsand the key scratch to at least hide it and make it less noticeable .

This is my question:

Is it really possible to improve the scratch just by wetsanding the car? I would hate for the clearcoat to peel of on the side from trying to fix this. It's original paint in this area.

Thanks

 

That depends on how deep the scratch is. If it isn't deep enough to go through the clear coat it will work. If the the scratch went through that and into the paint or to the metal, then, no, it won't take care of it. It wouldn't hurt to try. My guess is it might minimize it a bit, but chances are it will be too deep in some spots not to take it out completely. If you trust them, probably worth letting them give it a shot to sand it a little and see if you want to go further. On the other hand, if they go through into the paint you will have to paint that area. Hard to say without seeing it. Hope it works out for you.

 

Hi Spike, as said it depends on how deep the scratch is. I had some scratches on my car that would not polish out. I used one of those clear coat pens to fill in the scratch and then wet sanded very carefully until all was good again.
Then went over with the DA polisher, result, even I can't see where the scratch was.

If it is just the clear coat then it is worth a try and will only cost the price of the pen and a bit of time.

 

Even deep scratches can be filled and painted by small brush. There are many tricks to do this. Do some Youtube searches and you will see them in action. It will not be perfect but you will only see it if you look for it.

Wet sanding only will remove very light scratches.

 

let the guys handle it.
you've got nothing to lose.

 

Well, got the hood stripped and re painted, and thank God, that awful key mark could be wet sanded of my car, I also had them polish the car to take any other swirls or light scratches of, so back to looking pretty sharp :-)

Sadly the CEL came on and now I have a code, but I will open another topic for that .

 

Hey, can I ask how much you paid for the paint job on the roof and hood? My roof isn't looking too great recently....

 

Hood+getting key scratch of entire drivers side+polishing swirls out of entire car=330.00 it was an absolute bargain. This was at a little hole in the wall body shop

Getting roof and front bumper redone=600.00@Maaco. Seemed like a good deal at the time

Trunk and rear bumper=someone rear ended me and insurance took care of it.

 

Thanks. That body shop does sound good. My car is PED black, but roof and hood are starting to lose it. Graying with age, like me, I suppose. I can put the black wax on, but would rather a more permanent fix.

Of course, if I can't get the transmission sorted properly, I don't want to put money into anything else.