Harper Collision Center

Are You Suffering from Car Scratch Fever?

You just noticed a scratch on your beloved car. It's only approximately 1-2 inches in length, but you just spent a ton of money on a new paint job so you're justifiably upset. It's difficult to see unless you know where to look, but now it's become like a pebble in your shoe and it's bugging you.

At Harper Collision Center in Knoxville, TN we see these types of scratches all the time and in some cases, we will need to fix them at the shop. But, some smaller scratches can be repaired on your own rather easily.  So, here are a some tips about how to get rid of minor scratches on your car.

If you choose to take your vehicle to a local car wash or detailing center, it could cost you up to $100 or more to fix it. They will probably hand-wax it and try to buff it out, but that won't always work. If it's too deep, those techniques will not do the job, so now you're seriously concerned about the scratch. We all get it and it's called Cat Scratch Fever, but fear not.

To learn more ways about how to get rid of that dreaded scratch, you should first do some research online. There are a wide range of YouTube videos that will show you how to spray some WD-40 on the scratch to make it go away. Another website also suggests that rubbing toothpaste on it will work as well. The problem is that these techniques are only temporary fixes and after a while the scratches will re-appear. Basically, there are only a handful of ways to remove them effectively, so dig a little deeper and get more information before proceeding.

In the end, it's easier if you know how automotive paint works. Your vehicle has three levels of paint on top of the bare metal, consisting of primer, base color and clear coat, which is by far the thickest layer of the three. A tiny or shallow scratch won't normally break through the clear coat and into the paint, but larger or deeper scratches will impact all three.

Small scratches can normally be rubbed out using polishing compound. If your fingernail won't catch on the scratch, that means that it's a superficial clear coat scratch that can usually be smoothed out and made invisible rather easily. The goal with light scratches is to simply smooth them out enough so that they won't catch the light and make them invisible to the human eye.

For much deeper scratches, polish isn't abrasive enough to alleviate the problem, so you will need to physically sand the scratched area with a solid abrasive like sandpaper. You can do it by hand or use a mechanical sander, and for the more serious scratches, you will need to fill the V-shaped groove in with paint and Bondo, then sand and polish it to remove them.

Take care of Cat Scratch Fever and use one of these simple techniques to get your paint job back to looking beautiful again!

 Harper Collision Center, 115 Perimeter Park Rd, Knoxville, TN 37922

Sources: DIY News, AOL and Facebook