some idle good for nothing :mad::mad: scratched my wifes Seat Ibiza last night whilst it was on the drive!

The scratch is quite deep, you can feel the depth with your finger nail and is around 12 inches long on the rear quarter nearside. I had recently spent 6hrs on the car a few weeks ago (after reading many threads here:thumbup:) and it was looking really good !

You can imagine our anger! It's just as well I did not see the thick illiterate pike chav retard who did this!

Is there a way that this can be removed DIY - the car is silver and the scratch does not reveal the metal

Thanks

Sorry to hear that. We went out last night in my car, so it wouldn't be on our (narrow) drive for the little gits to scratch their way past either carelessly or on purpose.

As you can feel it with your finger nail, you're going to have to get it done by Chips Away or similar or get the touch up paint from Seat and, crucially, a small (number 1 or finer) good quality artist's brush and carefully paint along the scratch trying not to go over the edge. It will probably take a couple of coats to get the level up to the surrounding paint. Under no circumstances be tempted to use the brush that comes with the touch up paint, the result will look awful. Then you need to decide whether you can live with it like that or to get it nearly perfect, you'll have to wet sand it with some 3000 grit meguiars sand paper and then machine polish out the sanding haze.

Before painting it yourself, if you do go down that route, it might be worth attacking either end of the scratch with Scratch-X as the ends of a scratch like this or often not as deep, so you could at least shorten the length of the scratch.

Sorry to hear that. We went out last night in my car, so it wouldn't be on our (narrow) drive for the little gits to scratch their way past either carelessly or on purpose.

As you can feel it with your finger nail, you're going to have to get it done by Chips Away or similar or get the touch up paint from Seat and, crucially, a small (number 1 or finer) good quality artist's brush and carefully paint along the scratch trying not to go over the edge. It will probably take a couple of coats to get the level up to the surrounding paint. Under no circumstances be tempted to use the brush that comes with the touch up paint, the result will look awful. Then you need to decide whether you can live with it like that or to get it nearly perfect, you'll have to wet sand it with some 3000 grit meguiars sand paper and then machine polish out the sanding haze.

Before painting it yourself, if you do go down that route, it might be worth attacking either end of the scratch with Scratch-X as the ends of a scratch like this or often not as deep, so you could at least shorten the length of the scratch.

Thanks, ill try some of the megs stuff first. if i go down the paint route how do I get the clearcoat back onto the bit i've painted?

The clearcoat is tricky. Your best bet might be to do one coat with just the colour and then the second coat (and third if needed to get the level high enough) with a pre-mixed (in a plastic lid or something) 50:50 blend of the clear-coat and colour.

You really need to put some elbow grease in with the Scratch-X to get the most out of it btw. If you do paint it after doing the scratch-x make sure the remaining scratch is clean and free of polish. A cotton bud with some isopropanol alcohol would work well to ensure it's clean.

thanks wega3k

I'll try it and see how much I can get with megs, then decide what to do afterwards:thumbup:

If you can catch it with your nail then it ideally needs paint. A decent body shop should be able to fill, wetsand and polish it for you, for a nearly invisible repair.

When I did my stone chips (some of which were pretty deep), I used a decent size 00 artists paint brush to paint in the chips (you could also use a cheap 000 - the cheaper brushes don't hold their point as well, which is why you want a smaller one) - it'll allow you far better control than the brush with that comes with the paint. Once you've built it up near to the level of paint, apply some lacquer to it. You can then use some very fine "sandpaper" to knock any over-fill down, and use ScratchX to get the haze out (it'll need multiple applications to fully remove it [there again, I was rubbing gently...]). I found it helpful to lubricate the "sandpaper", which will clog it up slightly, making it cut less. I also noticed that if you apply ScratchX to scratches, it will pull the dirt out of them, which means they're less noticeable.

Come on then Nick, where is your DIY thread for such a repair?

Done it yet?

I'm waiting for my 2500grit paper and another couple of other bits to arrive. If it comes this week I'll do it this weekend if the weather's ok.

Will take some pics when I do it so you can laugh when I wreck SWMBO's Corsa.

Nick, i've got some 2500 & 3000 grit in my box you could borrow (well i dont want any used stuff back :P)

My car recently got key'd on the boot lid, not a big scratch but deep enough.

Luckily it hadn't gone through the paint.

I just polished the paint in the scratch, i then thoroughly removed the polish. Then applied some clear coat into the scratch.

Its made a vast improvement and i dont notice the scratch until i get close to it now, i keep forgetting to flat it back for that reason.

I dont know how you would fare with a 12" long scratch though, i do know your pain though. I had a flame red astra get key'd right through to the primer by about 2 ft long across the bonnet and onto the wing, and the paint work the previous owner had done to the bonnet wasn't exactly thin either.

thanks for all your suggestions, I wish I had an old bit of bodywork to practice on before I have a go - so I'll try some megs scratch x first, clean - then paint layers, laquer and sand then megs again:confused:

Well not sure i'll get round to it this weekend as I'm hoping to take delivery of my new superb which I'll be busy sorting out with AG lifeshine (free from the dealer) with a top coat of collinite - if this is the best thing to go on top that'll last a while.

I'll post some pics when I attempt the scratch repair and also the finished superb.

Now just need it to stay dry for a bit!

You could get a panel from the scrap yard to practice on first matey?

OK, so I finally wet sanded the Mrs' Corsa the other day. Mixed bag.

The sanding process is fine once you get over the nerves . I used Megs 2500 paper and the sanding haze polished out much easier than I was expecting. On a couple of the stone chips, I managed to lift out a bit of the touch up paint. I think this was down to not good enough surface prep (didn't use IPA to cleanse) and / or brought the level up too high with high build primer and only did one layer of colour. I'm really happy with some of the chips though and on all of them, the surface is totally smooth and the chip undetectable to the touch after polishing.

The scratch however, I'm a bit disappointed with and it's my own fault in the painting phase. As it's not my car, I wasn't striving for perfection and I didn't mix the paint and the lacquer. Big mistake. After sanding and polishing, the scratch is totally undetectable to the touch and from some angles you can't see it. If the light catches it wrong though, you can still see it quite well because it's clearly a different black, due to the missing lacquer. It's less glossy. I really didn't expect it to have quite such a big negative impact on the result. You live and learn though. I'm glad to have done it and I'm much happier about using wet sanding to perfect chip repairs on my own car now.

To reiterate, surface prep is critical. Multiple, thin layers is important and to get the colour match right you absolutely have to mix the colour and the lacquer for the final layer.

thanks, I'll bear that in mind when I do my wifes car - if it ever stops raining!