There are many things that can scratch and damage your car’s exterior painting. Juvenile activities, incorrect parking, children, parking lot errors, dashing, and accidents are some of the most common reasons that result in scratches on your car. Although it is just a little scratch that ruins the look of your car, it is not that easy to get it repainted within a budget. But don’t worry. Let me tell you the pocket-friendly ideas to refurbish the look of your car.
How To Remove Scratches From Car?
Examine your car carefully and find out whether is it a scratch or something like dust is stuck on it. When your car comes in contact with any other object that has a thin coating than your car, chances are it may lay as a raised line on the surface of your paint. If it’s the case, you will only require very less effort to remove this debris.
If it’s a scratch, find out how deep the scratch is. It will help you to pick the right method for removing the scratch.
The paint of the car has 4 main coats:” Steel, primer, color and clear coat”. When the scratch is limited only to the first layer that is “clear coat”, it can be fixed easily. If the color or steel is exposed at the scratched spot which means the damages is deeper. This condition requires much effort. You may even need to drive your car to a pro.
Anyhow if you are confident enough to fix the scratches by yourself and have tools in your home, you can start to refurbish. But before that watch YouTube tutorials. Doing so will save your time, energy and more importantly the money.
How To Prepare Your Car For Scratch Removal?
Step 1: Wash your car and dry it thoroughly. The existence of dirt on the scratched surface will cause more damages during the scratch removal. So get the debris out of your car before repair.
Step 2: “Sand the scratch”. Gently rub the damaged area using a sand paper. Do it carefully or else you will do the damage even worse. Rub it only until the clear coat. You shouldn’t dig it any further.
Step 3: Always sand in the direction of scratches. When you do it in the opposite direction, it will result in the development of more ridges and valleys on the paint surface.
Step 4: Rinse the area of scratch with water. It will help you identify whether you have reached the full depth of the scratch.
Step 5: Make sure that no dust and debris gets accumulated on the surface of paint or sandpaper.
Step 6: Once you rinse the damaged surface thoroughly, wipe that spot and let it dry. Usage of old rags may cause more scratches. To avoid these complications, use any good quality microfiber cloth.
How To Remove Scratches From Car By Yourself?
- Apply rubbing compound over the scratched area. When you spread this compound using a buffer pad, sanding will create a dull look over the scratched spot.
- The compound may remove some more paint from the surface but don’t panic, it will fix the scratches caused due to sanding.
- Now you polish the damaged region with a rubbing compound. You can turn on the buffer now. But keep it at a low level. Do it for not more than 10 minutes. Make sure you do the polishing at a faster pace so that the compound will not get dry before the process of smoothing is done.
- Now buff for up to one minute at 2000 rpm speed. Move the buffer side to side and move downward slowly.
- Don’t take off the complete layer anyway. Peel off only until the dull finish fades away. Depending on the type of scratch, the pressure applied and speed, the entire process can be accomplished in 5 minutes or more.
- Never buff on the scratched spot more than 1 second at a stretch. It may lead to more scratches.
- Wash the region of scratch and clean the compound residues. Use a soft towel and clean water to accomplish this task.
- To avoid the accumulation of residues at the repaired spot, take off the leftover compound as soon as buffing is finished.
- Use high-quality carnauba wax to seal the paint. If you don’t have any prior experience in working with wax, better watch some videos and learn the technique of using wax.
- So now, wash the car once again. Check out whether all the scratches are removed.
Follow the steps given under how to remove scratches from the car and refurbish the scratched parts shine again as a brand new one.
