Touching up car paint

Questions on how we spend our money and our time - consumer goods and services, home and vehicle, leisure and recreational activities
Post Reply
User avatar
Topic Author
tennisplyr
Posts: 3703
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2014 12:53 pm
Location: Sarasota, FL

Touching up car paint

Post by tennisplyr »

My car was scratched the other day by some shopping carts. Went to Honda to get matching metallic touch up paint. Touched up the scratches but the paint is much lighter than the car body. Any thoughts on how to rectify, I was reading something about applying a ‘clear coat’ to the touched up scratches which might make it darker??
“Those who move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out.” -Retired 13 years 😀
ktdintex
Posts: 208
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2021 7:42 am

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by ktdintex »

Touch up paint doesn’t work very well, IMO, especially for scratches. If you can remove it, check out Dr. Colorchip. Not sure how it works for scratches, but it works well on chips and I imagine would be fine for scratches as well.

Another option is to find a local auto paint person who specializes in touch up jobs. I had a big scratch in a high end sports car that a paint pro was able to completely fix. However, this type of spot repair works best with flat paint, i.e., non-metallic, not glittery paint jobs.
tm3
Posts: 774
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2014 6:16 pm

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by tm3 »

Good question, and I'll be following to learn any good tips. All my touch up paint dibbing and dabbing has been cosmetically imperfect but hopefully functionally good. I looked at some YouTube stuff once but it was much more involved than I wanted to get.
hunoraut
Posts: 1743
Joined: Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by hunoraut »

Self-applied touch up paint is not expected to be good. Even if the paint is from factory, or directly from a mix for your car.

Professional paint is applied in layers over a base/primer coat. You adding a dab of paint to a chip (usually to bare metal) will not make a satisfactory seamless finish. Its meant to look okay from a distance and prevent rusting from direct exposure
User avatar
lthenderson
Posts: 8525
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:43 am
Location: Iowa

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by lthenderson »

Touch up paint will never blend in. The purpose is to prevent rust from starting more than anything. If it bothers you, the best option is to take it in and get it professionally repainted.
Seal the Deal
Posts: 218
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:25 pm

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by Seal the Deal »

tennisplyr wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 7:18 am My car was scratched the other day by some shopping carts. Went to Honda to get matching metallic touch up paint. Touched up the scratches but the paint is much lighter than the car body. Any thoughts on how to rectify, I was reading something about applying a ‘clear coat’ to the touched up scratches which might make it darker??
I've used products from this company with pretty good success: www.automotivetouchup.com

The last time I ordered it took a few weeks to get it, but worth the wait. The color will be an exact match. You'll have a multi-step process that will take most of a day, giving various coats time to dry after sanding. Scratches are tricky, I've had better success on larger scrapes. Good luck.
User avatar
jabberwockOG
Posts: 3087
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by jabberwockOG »

The paintless dent guys usually know a paint and vinyl touch up guy who can hide scratches pretty well. Cost is typically $50-100 per scratch and they use an airbrush and custom mix the color right there. They usually work out of a van and work mobile going between used car lots, maybe 1 or 2 days a month on a rotating basis. Call a used car lot and ask the owner or manager for the cell number of the touch up guy they use.
Johny Fever
Posts: 347
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:05 am

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by Johny Fever »

jabberwockOG wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:27 pm The paintless dent guys usually know a paint and vinyl touch up guy who can hide scratches pretty well. Cost is typically $50-100 per scratch and they use an airbrush and custom mix the color right there. They usually work out of a van and work mobile going between used car lots, maybe 1 or 2 days a month on a rotating basis. Call a used car lot and ask the owner or manager for the cell number of the touch up guy they use.
The ones that are good are amazing. The art is making sure that you are working a totally flat surface. Light refraction is an issue with paint tint...find a good guy and pay em its worth it...I have seen guys/gals blend a million dollar car and you could not find it!!
sureshoe
Posts: 2165
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:26 pm

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by sureshoe »

I'm really surprised to hear you bought it at Honda and they didn't match. Bummer.

I've done it with black paint, and it's noticeable if you're close, but from more than 10 feet it isn't.

I'd step back 10-20 feet and see if you notice it. Touchup isn't to make it perfect, it's to conceal it. The worst thing you can do is fiddle with it and get glopping or extra layers.
User avatar
CardinalRule
Posts: 1204
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 10:01 am
Location: United States

Re: Touching up car paint

Post by CardinalRule »

I bought one of those pens from Mazda (with the exact paint code as my 2018 vehicle) for a very small rock chip on a fender. It didn't match as well as I would have liked, but I made matters worse initially by not shaking the pen thoroughly. The shaking really seems to matter.
Post Reply