Car Paintwork Damage: Assessing The Options

Posted by Ben Davidson about 8 months ago

Maybe you were involved in a crash; maybe you’ve bought a clunker in the hopes of fixing it up; or maybe someone has been careless when opening their car door in a parking lot-- the reason isn’t particularly important. You’ve got your car, it’s got scratches in the paintwork, and you want to fix the problem.

You have a range of options to choose from. Below, we’ll explore professional repair methods, as well as a well-known DIY option, to see what will really help get your paintwork back to its best. We’ve given each option a grade, helping to further establish the option that will work best for you.

Option 1: A professional respray

You can take your car to be resprayed if you have obvious scratches on the bodywork. Respraying will work on all but the deepest of scratches, but it’s also rather expensive. Additionally, some car owners report that the respray is never quite as good a finish as the original paintwork, meaning you may pay (a lot) for work that isn’t necessarily that impressive.

Grade: D-- respraying works, but there’s no doubt it’s expensive and the finished results are variable.

Option 2: Toothpaste

There are thousands of DIY scratch removal methods out there, but perhaps the most popular is toothpaste.

There are literally hundreds of videos discussing this method for removing scratches. Rather annoyingly, these videos don’t seem to come to a consensus-- some say the method works, others say it’s a waste of time that can damage your paintwork. So who’s right? Does toothpaste work to remove car scratches?

The answer to that one is yes, but there’s a caveat: toothpaste will only work on minor scratches and there is a chance you could cause more harm than good. If you have slight scuff marks, then toothpaste can be beneficial. Anything larger or deeper and toothpaste just isn’t going to help, and might even worsen the damage.

Grade: C for minor scratches and F for anything else.

Option 3: Wrapping

Wrapping is not particularly well-known, but it’s a great way of improving the outer bodywork of your car. The process is relatively simple; a plastic material is wrapped around your car and sealed so it holds tight. The car’s overall look is completely changed, but without the expense of respraying-- and producers of wraps such as Lucent Wraps say that wraps can be removed if you so wish. A wrap will last, on average, around five years, making it a viable option to cover up bodywork issues.

Grade: A - a great option that’s more affordable than respraying and only has minor downsides.

In conclusion

The options above should give you an idea of your options when you want a quick fix to the bodywork of your car. If you pick the one that’s right for you, then your car will be looking as good as new in no time.