You'd be forgiven for feeling as though the world has come to an end when the gorgeous gunmetal sheen on your brand-new Audi is defaced by a scratch. These days, there's no easy fix for imperfections. Repairs were easy enough when Ford only released black cars, but today's market is crammed with thousands of shades and finishes. Even the smallest scratch requires a precise touchup with just the right clarity, hue, and material. You’ll need just the right technique to ensure proper film build with each coat, which is approximately 4 mils for primer, 1 mil for color, and 2.5 mils for clear. Scratch repair is an art and a science. It takes talent to return your car to the condition it was in when it first rolled off the production line. Will's Auto Body shop in Concord, CA offers premium, quality car scratch repair, ensuring that your car looks as sparkling as it did on the day you bought it.
First Thing's First: Diagnosis for Car Scratch Repair
Not all paint imperfections require the same fix, so the first step to a precise repair is a precise diagnosis. Your paint problem could be:
Delamination: Your clear coat has begun to peel, and incompatible paint products have worsened the problem.
Rust caused by oxidation. Sealers and wax will prevent oxidation. However, rust will happen on bare metal and if this happens the paint has already been compromised. When dealing with rust, the best fix is to completely remove it. Most surface rust can be sanded out, but anything pitted will have to be replaced.
Fading: Fading stems from oxidation. The sun’s UV rays burn paint like it does your skin. Industrial fallout sticks to paint and gives it a gritty feeling as well as making your paint look dull. One of the biggest causes of fading paint is the frequent use of automatic carwashes. Running your vehicle through an automatic carwash is worse for your vehicle than not washing your car. Unless it’s a touchless auto carwash, stay far away.
Scratches: While all scratches will affect your topcoat, other scratches can reach beyond and damage the basecoat (color). If you are dealing with only a clear topcoat scratch, you may still have the option of getting it polished out. If it does reach past the topcoat, your scratch repair will require an auto body technician to feather our scratch and apply primer. Once primed for a uniform substrate, then a base coat can be applied then topped off with a PPG clear coat. Whether your scratch is caused by flying debris, other car doors, or a minor accident, it'll need careful inspection to determine the right combination of clear coat, primer, solvent, and abrasion.
Every repair needs a strategy based on the depth of the scratch and the aesthetics of the coat's shade, hue, and texture. Fixing vehicle scratches is a process, not a one-hour job. While scratch repair kits can certainly improve mild scratches that don't affect the primer, it's best to seek out a professional opinion from our body and paint technicians. Like a doctor, a collision technician will diagnose and treat symptoms that might worsen if incorrectly addressed. Skip the diagnosis, and you might end up with a 'disease' that affects your entire shell.
Healing Minor Scratches with Quality Car Scratch Repair in Concord, CA
Clearcoat scratches are the easiest to repair. You'll often see them as paint swirls in glinting sunlight. They can sometimes be fixed with a simple polishing compound, but even the most minor scratches need a little finessing. The scratch and its surroundings might need gentle sanding. In most cases, though, some of your clear topcoat will be affected.
Auto detailing is intense and knowledgeable work. Half the job of detailing during car scratch repair lies in selecting the right products to penetrate the factory or aftermarket paint that has been cured. The experience of our auto body technicians has ensured that no time is wasted while trying to determine the right chemical combination to strip your vehicle’s paint. Our body technicians know the right combination and effort it’s going to take for a variety of vehicles and paint types. The best auto body repair professionals consider their work art for excellent reasons. With this much attention to detail required, fixing a scratch is far from an amateur pursuit.
Priming for Car Scratch Repair
When the basecoat of your paint is scratched, the area must be sanded and primed. The precision of this step will determine how well your paint job adheres to your vehicle’s body. During the process of sanding, the auto body technician will inspect for any surface rust that needs to be sanded out as well. This is one of the many reasons that our auto body repair shop is your best option. A poorly handled scratch can lead to widespread corrosion that will spread like a virus to other parts of your car. Even shallow scratches need proper care and attention to prevent future damage.
Prepping your vehicle properly for primer is a must. Using the right cleaners and sandpaper requires a sure hand and delicate attention to detail. Grinding the spot down to bare metal is the best route to a beautiful and lasting effect along with proper mixing of the primer. It takes many years of hard work to learn how to find the balance between treatments that are too harsh and too gentle when offering lasting car scratch repair.
Color Matching to Fix a Scratch
Color matching is one of the most challenging elements in quality car scratch repair. Just running to your local paint supply store and buying paint rarely give the correct color. When color is mixed, it doesn’t look the way that it will once applied to your car. We do spray outs of every vehicle to make sure that the color we put on your vehicle is the same as it was before. Most cars have paint codes displayed in the glove boxes, trunks, door jams, and under the hood. Those codes will have several variants which are a good place to start but not an exact color match. Each code is a breakdown of toners that we analyze and determine which way a color needs to go to get a good match. Some cars have two or more paint codes, so things can get tricky fast.
If your scratch reaches beyond the base, the exposed metal may develop some rust, so the best option is to take your car to a dedicated auto body paint shop that can offer quality car scratch repair. Paint is more than just hue and gloss. It's also a protective coating, and it needs to last. The UV protection in the urethane clear will largely determine the permanence of the job. Our auto body technicians offer quality car scratch repair in Concord, CA will help you to find the right quality/cost balance for your vehicle.
Understanding Paint Protection Films
Shallow, fine scratches can often be polished out before using paint protection films (PPF). However, some scratches that are a little deeper can be resolved with PPF. These magical polymers fit on your clear paint coating, retaining their shape after application. That allows them to self-heal. Contrary to popular belief, you can wax over a paint protection film, but PPFs don't last forever. If you're seeking a more lasting solution, ceramic coatings will protect your gorgeous sheen for longer. Clear Bra protects against road debris chips while adding to the sparkle of your car, but its invisibility will fade in time.
Scratch repair requires the eyes of an artist, the knowledge of a chemist, and the sensibilities of an auto body technician. Our professionals balance all three traits, giving your vehicle the care and dedication it needs to recover its previous handsome good looks. There's no better-quality car scratch repair in Concord, CA than at Will’s Auto Body, Inc.