Hello,

Looking for a bit of advice. While parked in the car park yesterday some plonker managed to customise my paintwork on my monte, my guess is someone was trying to get passed with a box or a pram or something but i have ended up with 3 small scratches on the boot right next to the rear badge.

Is there any cost effective way i could repair this?

Thanks in advance.

Louis

How deep are they? If they catch your finger-nail, then they are probably going to need repainting to "repair", although you could disguise them a bit. If they don't catch your nail, a bit of cut and polish and/or filler wax (e.g. Meguiar's Scratch-X) will help to some degree.

Polish out with a good polish if its not gone to deep.

If it has gone deeper the cheap option is to purchase paint repair brush and fine cutting compound for taking back any excess when applying, as its a new car I would not advise doing this if your having to ask this question.

Smart repair would probley only cost around £40-£80, depending on how bad they are and who you use.

Thanks for your replies, they are not deep at all.

Will try and polish them out and see how i get on.

Cheers again!

Just to be accurate you will not really polish them out you will need to '' cut '' them out, i would use a quality cutting compound like Menzerna or Meguiers.

Read another post a while back where the following was recommended for small chips and scratches;

http://www.chipex.co.uk/choose_product.html

Hope you get it sorted,

TP

Cheers TP, will have a look.

If they are not deep, you could try wet sanding (gently) with some 2000 grit sandpaper and then ideally machine polish it back up nice and shiny ;-)

Or bring it to me for a SMART Repair ;-)

What I do with scratches (but do this at your own risk and dont blame me if it doesnt work out)

If polishing doesnt get rid, then provided it is just a lacquer scratch (i.e. not down to the paint layer and definitely not down to the primer), then in the shelter of your garage (out of the wind/ airborne dirt), clean the area thoroughly, finishing with a solvent paint cleaner (e.g. Halfords do one but I use spray brake cleaner from toolstation) to do a final clean/remove wax. Then spray 3, 4 or more light coats of lacquer over the scratches, waiting at least 15 minutes between each application. Dont worry about a bit of overspray, dont attempt to get a glossy finish. The idea is simply to fill the scratches with lacquer and a bit over.

Allow to dry in the garage (minimum 3-4 hours) before using the car. After about another 48 hours, when the applied lacquer is moderately hard, use a fine rubbing compound (or T- cut if you must) and cut/polish the sprayed area. The idea here is to cut away the newly sprayed on lacquer leaving the scratches refilled with lacquer which hopefully are no longer visible.