# Help with scratch repair



## shawn007 (Feb 23, 2008)

Hey guys,

Someone had keyed my 07 altima from the front fender to the back door. I was trying to fix the scrach using touch up paint that I got from the delear. I isolated the area using masking tape and after filling in the scrach with the duplai filler and primer I painted the area using the brush that came with the paint which was a big mistake cause all it did was just bloobed everything. I tried to resand the area and use the spray paint but it still does not look good. It looks like I just put some kind of patch on the area. How can I get it so it will blend in? I tried wet sanding and i tried a rubbing coupond. Because I had used the masking tape it made a out line of the tape area. I am now upset that I messed up the car more. Please can someone help me or give me advice on how to fix the mess I made?


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## [email protected] (Jan 6, 2008)

Hey shawn007,

Sorry to here about your 07. My 350 was parked the other day and this kid I used to work with pulled out of his parking spot, REALLY SHARP. And messed up the front end of my Z. Long story short it was too much for me to handle on my own so I took it to a body shop that I trusted (i.e. Clean, Organized, 08 Paint Booth......) a scratch of that size I would have left up to the Pro's. To get that fixed and repainted you might be looking at 700 to 1000 dollars. Sorry for the news but I'm sure you'll understand!!!

Please let me know if you have any other Questions.

Thanks,


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## Dustin (Dec 14, 2003)

It seems you took off down the wrong path. The effective way to fix it now would be take it to a body shop, and have them repaint the area, possibly the entire side. For future reference I'll give you some hints on what to do.

Don't use filler/primer on a scratch. You should have taken a high grit sand paper to the edges of the scratch to feather it out just a bit. The touch up paint would have worked fine if you would have used the pen tip to fill in the scratch. I know it will leave a raised area, that's fine. You should have then wet sanded the bump from the touch up paint down until it's smooth with the rest of the paint, and feathered it in with the paint ~2" around the scratch. You might have to use the brush to get a good fill at this point. It would then need a couple hours in the sun to make sure it's hard enough to polish out. I would have started with something along the lines of Scratch X, a diminishing abrasive. That used with a random orbital like the PC 7424 would make it extremely hard to notice, but take it a step farther with a good glaze and sealant with a nice coat of wax over the entire car. You'd be amazed.

I've fixed a key mark on my friend's Indigo metallic blue '04 cavalier in a day for right at 30 dollars for the touch up paint, and my use of materials. You'd never know it had a key touch metal.


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