Anyone who has owned a new car will know that it won't stay shiny and pristine forever. Even if you wash your car regularly, its paint will inevitably fade over time, losing its factory-fresh shine.
The aging process can also be accelerated by a variety of factors, such as parking your car outdoors, or brush branches scraping the paint when you drive down a narrow country road. Events beyond your control, such as picking up scrapes and dents from out-of-control trolleys and inattentive drivers in supermarket parking lots, can also take some of the shine off your car.
Not only will you risk the visual impact of a scratched and scraped car over time - you may also suffer financially because a worn or damaged car won't be worth as much as a better maintained one. This is especially worth keeping in mind if you lease or purchase a car through finance, as the predictive value of the car at the end of the agreement will depend on its condition. If scrapes and scratches are particularly severe, you may also face a hefty repair shop bill.
Depending on the severity of the damage, you may not need to get your car back in tip-top condition in the garage. If the damage is minor and only affects the clear coat top layer of the car paint, you can fill it yourself at home using a repair kit and car care product, which you can find at your nearest supermarket or auto parts store. For larger jobs, you can rely on the services of qualified small and medium area Repair technicians who specialize in repairing larger wear, scrapes, dents, and stone chip damage on cars.
If you're a particularly handy DIY enthusiast, you can also use household items to quickly repair surface damage -- for example, you can use toothpaste to cover up small scratches on your car. However, it is best to only use such solutions as a last resort: since these products are obviously never considered for car maintenance duties, long term use or errors if you make a paint application to the car.
But what kind of maintenance is right for you? Below we summarize how to fix different levels of damage, depending on what it is, and highlight which kits can make your car look good again.
Swirl paint
So you just washed your car. It sparkles, but all is not well, because as you move around the car, you can see the sunlight going through the whirlpool of the paint finish. These marks are caused by grit and dust particles sticking to the cleaning cloths and sponges you use. The best way to avoid this happening in the first place is to use a grit guard at the bottom of the wash bucket. This will prevent the sponge from absorbing debris and dirt from the water and moving it back onto the car.
But if the damage is done, there are ways to make those swirls look better. A quick technique you can use to see the extent of the damage is to run your thumb or fingernail over the scratch. If you can't feel them with your nails, then you should be able to use scratch remover.
Scratch remover is a superfine abrasive that cleans the top layer of the paint and smooths out any swirls. Simply apply a small amount of scratch remover to the cloth and gently rub it over the affected part in a circular motion to make it look as good as new. If you can get the light to see the swirls at the right Angle, it should be obvious when they disappear.
Use the scratch remover you apply with ease, as essentially what you are doing is removing a layer of paint. If it's a coat of varnish you're working with, that's great, but if the cleaning cloth starts to change the color of your car's paint, that means you've reached the paint layer and you've removed the protective paint on top of it.
If you regularly repair paint jobs, it may be worth investing in a paint depth meter. You can buy one for about £20, which will tell you how much paint and varnish you have to use, even primer, primer or bare body, before entering the lower layer.
Today, you can buy a scratch remover that matches your car's paint color. This will not only clean up any scratches, but also enhance the color of the car. However, these products work best on solid colors rather than nonmetallic colors, and can make your car tone slightly different if you don't get the color match exactly right.
If it is very small for your paint job, then you can obtain scratch pens that can fill in minor scratches. Simply apply the pen to the damage and clean your car, and the scratch will almost disappear.
After removing the scratch, it's time to clean the car again. Use a clay rod to remove any remaining particles from the body of the car, then make sure the affected area is well waxed to make it look shiny and protected.
If you use a light brush on a wall or post in the parking lot, there may be more damage to contend with. You can still use scratch remover to finish the look, but if the color coating is damaged - or you've scraped bare metal or plastic - then you'll need something more substantial to repair the damage.
Fortunately, there are a few kits available that will allow you to make your own DIY repairs. These kits will come with a variety of polishes, treatments, and brushes to make the damaged look like new.
While some products will provide you with the paint you need to mix to match your car's paint, you can also get kits that include a car's specific paint color. When you buy one of these kits, all you need to do is find your car's paint code (usually on the vehicle's VIN nameplate).
These kits usually follow the same procedure: clean the affected area, paint the damaged part with a brush, allow the paint to dry, then sand the area so that the affected area becomes smooth with the rest of the paint. After that, you can clean the car with wax to provide some extra protection to the damaged area.