becks14

Hi! This is my first post here. I've had my 2008 SS for about six months now and I love it. I am flat out in love with my car.

A couple weeks ago some butthole at work put a iphone-sized scuff on my driver side. Of course they didn't leave a note. I tried to take a picture of it today, although please excuse the yellow dust, the pollen is insane this week and all cars are coated yellow.

The scuff is very textured feeling, rough like it hit the paint. And why is it white? There is no dent whatsoever, so I guess I should be grateful. The thing is the paint was FLAWLESS when I bought the car and I'm an extremely careful driver so this bothers me A LOT.

I'm assuming getting it fixed would cost hundreds of dollars and I'm worried about getting screwed at a body shop and I'm worried about trying one of those scuff kits. Is there anything I can do to make it less annoying or should I just not touch it until I can take it somewhere? I know I'm a chick, but if I can fix a TV with a soldering iron, hopefully I can figure out one of those kits

I don't want to potentially make it worse. I'm a newb at car stuff, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Capo's Freak

I hate jerks that do that crap! Someone did that to me a few weeks ago but backed into the car and left a crap load of scratches and paint transfer and one nice crack. $1800 worth of damage so I def. feel your pain man.

becks14

My theory is they must hate their own cars so much they don't care who or what they bump into. And then I try to park as far away from everyone else as possible and some jerk will purposely park next to me just to prove some kind of point. Ugh.. I hate a lot of people haha.

Gene Culley

iTrader: (1)

It needs to be washed, then clay bar, then Porter Cable polisher with some Adam's swirl and haze remover. That's going to make it look a ton better, if not fix it all together.

Paulyd

Ouch, use some touch up paint from gm, carefully painting in the scuffs, then after it dries lightly sand it with some 2000+ grit paper, use meguiars scratch X which has worked wonders for me, then re apply another coat of gm paint and polish + wax it. This is what i did for some scuff marks i had on the side of my car cept they werent as big as that but now you can't notice it. It will never be perfect, but it can make it less noticeable

Ricer

It looks to me like a majority of that is paint transfer. Basically most of what you are seeing is paint from the other car. Soak a very soft rag in lacquer thinner(don't worry it will not hurt your paint at all), and gently rub the white parts. If i'm right, the white will come off with no issues. Our bumpers are black in raw form, so it pretty much has to be paint from the other car. Once you gently rub all of the white off, you'll get a real idea of what you're dealing with. From what I can see, most of it will be able to polish out.. maybe with a little wet sanding it'll look pretty good again. Once you get the white off.. you can always take it to a reputable body shop or detail shop and have them wetsand/compound that area.. that's your only option to make it look good other than repainting it.

I manage an automotive finishes supply store (I sell car paint).. and have dozens of people that come in for touch-up paint every week.. 90% of them are this exact problem.. and I "fix" it for them in 5 minutes in the parking lot.

All In 360

give it a real good wash. the rule of thumb is, if you can catch it with a finger nail, it's through the clearcoat.

I had a similar situation in the fall, except they owned up to it. it was through the clear, slightly bigger than the size of my hand, and only ran a bit around 350, to repaint and blend in

aerojt

Try some buffing compound, you may get lucky and "Scrape" it down just a little so it isn't as noticeable.

Whitnith

iTrader: (2)

This. I came out to my car one day to find this:


Buddy who works at a autobody shop had me drop by after they closed and about 15 minutes later you can't tell it was there. Mine took a little longer since that one top area needed just a pinstripe worth of touch up paint.

Switt23

iTrader: (7)

I was thinking the same thing as Ricer.

Does the OP have access to a Porter Cable or Machine Buffer or are you trying to fix it by hand? I would first wash the bumper and see if you can catch your nail. If you can't, it's paint transfer left on the clear. You can take some light cutting compound, then swirl remover, then wax and glaze to buff it back to glossy.

If you can snag your finger nail it's going to need touch up paint or refinishing of the bumper. On a black car though, touch up paint is hard to hide on a size that big, at least I don't like blending it