Can you tell me what’s the worst nightmare for a car enthusiast? It’s seeing scratches on your car. I’m a car lover myself and I just love seeing my car shining. But whenever I see scratches it just breaks my heart.
But scratch is a common problem that every car enthusiast has to deal with. So, what’s the solution for it?
The solution is learning how to remove scratches from your car yourself. If you know how to remove scratches then you won’t need to worry about these tiny scratches here and there.
There can be different types of scratches. The one we’ll be dealing with in this guide is clear coat scratches. It’s the most common out there and it’s pretty easy to get clear coat scratches.
Before that, you need to understand how paint works and what is a clear coat scratch.
Car paint has three layers mainly. Firstly, there’s a metal body. Then on top of that, the first layer is Primer. Primer sets on the metallic body. After primer, the second layer you’ll find will be the Base coat. The base coat is responsible for giving your car the color. After the base coat, there’s a clear coat. Clear coat is the thickest of them all and today’s topic is clear coat scratches.
So, now we know we’ll be learning about cleat coat scratch removal. But exactly how will you know whether the scratch you’re dealing with is a clear coat scratch or not?
It’s actually pretty easy. Just grab some soapy water and spray it on top of the scratch. Then give it a gentle rub with a microfiber towel. If the scratch vanishes for a while and then reappears after some time, then that is a clear coat scratch.
When you’re pouring soapy water the void in a clear coat is filled with water. And for some time it stays filled. That time light reflects fully on that surface and gives us a delusion that there’s no scratch present there.
If the scratch is deep, it won’t pass the soapy water test. It won’t vanish for a while and you’ll understand that’s a deep scratch.
So, let’s remove that cleat coat scratch from our car, shall we?
The first thing you need to do is mix water with soap and make proper soapy water. Pour it into a spray bottle and spray it evenly on the scratch. After that, use a microfiber towel and clean the area with it.
Now to identify the scratch location you can place a piece of tape on top of the scratch and a piece of tape on the bottom of the scratch. That way, it will be easier to identify the scratch.
Once the scratch location is visible you can grab some sandpaper. With sandpaper, we need to rub that scratch area until it is removed completely.
If the scratch is quite deep then a good starting point will be 3000 grit sandpaper. If it’s less deep then you can go with 5000 grit sandpaper.
Spray soapy water and rub the scratch area carefully till it’s fully gone. Once it’s gone, you can continue with the next step.
After using the sandpaper, you’ll notice the space is not shiny anymore, like the rest of the car. Don’t worry, we’ll soon restore the glossiness.
Grab a scratch polish. Pour some on a clean microfiber towel. Then rub it in a circular motion on your car. Rub until you see it shining.
After polishing properly you can use some paste wax. Paste wax will protect the clear coat of your car.
Just like that, the car is good as new. That clear coat scratch is long gone and you can’t find it anymore.
