My condo's indoor parking is very compact, and my neighbour always parks his car way too close so I am stuck with a very thin spot.

In consequence, I briefly scratched the left bottom side of the passenger door onto a concrete post. See pictures. The overall size of the scratches are not that big, but they are still fairly visible. The first pic is without camera flash, and doesn't show much, while the second pic is with flash, which makes them more visible than it seems. These are also close up pictures and make the scratches look bigger than they really are.

I have never scratched any car in the past and am kinda of panicking. Are these types of scratches easy to fix? Can I simply go to a local garage and get it painted cheaply, or is that something that will be costly?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

If the scratches are only in the clear coat , you could rub them out yourself by hand with a mild polishing compound or with a random orbital polishing tool. I've done this myself both ways depending on depth of scratch. A good detailer could also do it. If pant color is damaged, will likely need to be painted and clear coated. Metallic is not as easy as a non metallic, but doable. I just had my wife's ruby red metallic lower door panel done for about $400. Let us know how you proceed and results. I've also had single scratches touched up with a thin line brush, but my car is ebony. Results are not showroom perfect by any means.

Yours looks like the paint is chipped in one spot at minimum. The hand or machine polish should take some of it out.

 

Just went to two body shops and was told the scratches went through the paint, so it'll need repainting. The first one was a kinda ghetto looking facility who quoted $750. The second one had a professional looking facility with many other luxury cars, and quote me $350.00 which I agreed to do. It'll only be done Monday and be finished the following day. I will keep this thread posted on the result.

I just hope the new painting won't contrast the other parts of the car (at least enough for unknowing people to notice). Anyone else ever had experience like this?

 

I think probably everyone here has had one of those moments, or has come back to the parking lot of the grocery store to find out some soccer mom gave them a nice present and didn't leave a note. $350 seems fair to me to have it repainted and it should look fine if the shop is good. They keep the whole car so that they can blend not just the color but the shade. As was said earlier, if you get a scratch in your clear coat, a good detailer can actually melt the clearcoat around it and fill in the scratch to near perfection. I have a good friend who is an extremely detail oriented high-end detailer and he is a master at this.

 

Not to be a naysayer but I've had 3 cars with scratches or very small dings, all repainted by different shops at different times and every time I could see the repair. These were not cheap repairs but a spot repair on a panel is, IMHO, always going to be noticeable at certain angles and under certain lighting conditions (such as fluorescent lights). It used to feed my ICD tendencies just knowing it was there....

 

[QUOTE=datjkdxf;1203072 The first one was a kinda ghetto looking facility who quoted $750. The second one had a professional looking facility with many other luxury cars, [/QUOTE]

Best way to judge a paintshop is by asking to see the work they have done and are carrying out. Only then you can make a more informed decision.

Many a ghetto looking shop can turn out incredible results, while those with the shiney toolkits and painted workshop floors are hopeless.

Have just replaced 2 doors on my X type due to rust after Listers jaguar replaced the door skins a few years ago.

 

As long as they're refinishing the complete door there should be no issues.

Generally. a good bodyshop will slightly blend in to the surrounding areas too
A spot repair on the other hand would likely be more visible


I can see a rather irate Jaguar owner having words with their neighbour just shortly....

 

That's right, they call it "feathering". I've had a few episodes with silver cars which are notoriously difficult to colour match and after the repairs were done you could never tell, even though I kept one of the cars for about 3 years afterward.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, it is appreciated. And yeah, from what I understood they will be repainting the whole door. I have the metallic black (called ultimate black on my jaguar specs), so i'm hoping they have the right paint.

Oh yes, especially last night when it happened. I was so irate it ruined my night and couldn't sleep lol. Not much I can do, and I never see the guy so I've left him a note on his parking spot politely asking him to please park as far as possible on his side.

 

Update: So the appointment got delayed until today. I brought in my car this morning, and if everything is on schedule I'll have it back tomorrow afternoon. Here's another "before pic", the few white lines below the passenger door handle. My car is a bit dirty too I know lol.


Before heading to the body shop, I stopped by a Jaguar authorized body shop and was quoted the exact same price (but with a long waiting time) so it gave me confidence that the garage I'm going quoted me the right thing.

They will repaint the whole door, and I'm hoping it'll look as close as how it was before as possible. It's a 2014 model too, so perhaps the paint on the rest of car will not differ too much with new paint. I'll keep the thread posted once it's done.

 

Got my car back yesterday, and it was flawless. Very happy with the job!


$350 CAD cost

 

Hard to tell from the picture but looks way better than those white marks.

Not to mention a free car wash!

Thanks for the update.

 

Looks good, no worries!

 

Looks great. Hard to believe it only cost $350 to fix.

 

Looks awesome