It's heart sickening to see this today. How do you repair scratches like this? I believe a dog did this to the door.

 

Pretty hard to see how bad the scratches are from the picture. If you run your hand over it could you feel the edges of the paint? Basically if your finger nail stops if you go over it.. than its too late, you'd need to repaint the area.

 

I hate to say repaint is not something I wanted. I am gonna buy some 2000 grit wet sandpaper, porter cable polisher and meguiar m105/m205 to polish then out but I am not sure if retouch is needed. Can I just used oem touch pen for the deep scratch? The finger nail did come to some resistent but not much. I am hoping its not too deep.

 

Do you have any experience in wet sanding? If not you probably would want to have a professional take a look/take care of it for you before you do further damage and ruin the clear coat completely.

 

Depending on the depth of the scratch Dr.colorchip works miracles.

 

Not much experience in wet sanding but I've done it using a kit purchased from autozone on the rear bumper.

 

That looks horrible! Take it to a body shop. Scratch fix and deep compound isn't going to fix that.

 

Don't cheap out and fix it right the first time. You'll save yourself from wasting money the first time.

 

^^^ I agree with this. Get it done right the first time.

 

I owned a detailing business for couple of yrs and from the looks of the pic the scratches look to bad to wet sand and compound plus when this is gone there is a level change and you may lose your clear. Rule of thumb is if you can catch your fingernail in it, to deep to wet sand. Even though I have repair some that caught nail. This should def be done by professional. But I agree whatever you do first time it and get it over with. If there is a spec of rust repaint fast.

 

I am more leaning toward to fix this myself. If I screw up, then I'll get it painted. I'll aslo learn few things and have the tools handy for waxing when summer comes.

Base on the picture, have the scratches gone through the clear coat? Some catch my nail but with very light resistent.

I have also heard that if scratches disappear when I wet the surface, it's repairable with buffering. This is true in my case, maybe after all it's not too bad?

 

You may not be able to get them out 100%, but if you are patient and skilled you can get the vast majority of that to disappear to the point where it won't be noticeable and you'll have to look very hard to find it.

1500 grit, then 2000 grit, followed by 3000. Compound, cutting polish, finishing polish. Done. As you said, if you screw it up then get it repainted.

 

I dont think wet sanding would work. From your pictures, the scratches look way to deep to be wet sanded out.

 

It might be a little late to recommend what I did, but in case someone has the same issue I had. Like the op I had a bad scratch thanks to an asshat who decided to park beside me when I was parked far away and in an empty lot. Well even with all the room, they managed to damage my door with a nice mark that my fingernail stopped on a few of the cuts in the paint.

I too was about to attempt wetsanding, but came across this site that had posted some work with a guy who attempted to get something very similar to what I had out. I followed the guide with the same product he used with exception of using a porter cable instead. I must say that sufbuf pad did miracles along with Fast gloss 400. I managed to get 98% of the scuff mark off my door, you couldn't find it anymore if I told you to look. I know, no pics, but I didn't take any as I didn't know how successful I would be. The pics in the link I've provided is basically what I had anyway and the results are the same.

Can we save this with the Rupes and Menzerna FG400? -

And oh I agree with BB, take your time!

 

Wow thanks so much for posting this. I haven't had chance to fix my scratch yet. I will go ahead and order those tonight, hopefully Amazon has all I need.