Fixing paint chip

[Boba]

Hi guys, my car was dinged by some careless driver when they opened their car door. It's dinged pretty deep and his paint has basically "stuck" to the my car paint. I didn't touch it yet but I know if I try to rub off his paint, I might expose the base coat of my car or something....

So I want to ask if anyone knows the proper procedure to fixing chipped paint if I already have the OEM touch up paint.

Thanks

[Murr1525]

Re: Fixing paint chip

Any pic?

Where is the ding? How involved do you want to get?

You can make it look ok easily enough, but perfection will take more skill.

[erobertson]

Re: Fixing paint chip

I'd start by using either ScratchX, M105 etc to gently remove the other cars paint and see what's the damage to your own paint. The other vehicle's paint will usually come off easily. That step may be enough to improve the situation. The next steps depend on what kind of damage is left in your paint. If it is a small chip you can use the touch up paint to make the repair. If the damage is more extensive you may need to consider sanding the edges and gradually building up the repair using several coats of touch up paint. If the chip went all the way through you may need to consider more prep work to complete the repair. For the really deep chips a small dap of spot putty is applied and then sanded smooth. This would be followed by primer and then finally your touch up paint. You can get a repair kit by Duplicolor at any of the major stores like Autozone, etc. So as you see the repair can be very simple or very complex based on the amount of damage and how much perfection you're looking for.

In summary I'd use your product of choice ScratchX etc and remove the extraneous paint, so you can see what you have to work with.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Fixing paint chip

erobertson has accurately described some ways to effect a paint chip repair, but if you have no experience doing this, or are not comfortable with the thought of doing any aspect of the process, do not teach yourself on a vehicle you care about. A pro who does this sort of thing for a living can make the process look simple and easy - with experience it is, without it.... not so much.

Most definitely use ScratchX 2.0 or similar to remove the paint transfer from the offending vehicle, snap a couple of pictures and post them up here so we can take a look at what you're really up against. It could be just a light scratch that you can repair with ScratchX 2.0 alone, it could be something deeper that you should have body shop take a look at, or it could be something fixed with the paintless dent repair process. Let's have a look at it.