Friend's car vandalised. Can this be corrected without a repaint?

4u2nvinmtl

New member
So my friend got his car vandalised pretty bad (he had it coming, IMHO) regardless he's a friend and I wanted to help him out.

The entire car was spray painted red and scratched/carved it up.

I tried correcting the scratches with my PC-7424xp using blue/cyan Hydro Tech pads, with M101. I was able to quickly remove the red spray paint and correct the swirls & RIDS, but not the scratches...

I assume he needs a repaint.

Other than a body shop any suggestions would be appreciated, I'm currently leaning towards touch up paint or just clear to fill the scratches in (perfection isn't the goal, just some kind of improvement).

I rushed to clay before taking pictures:


Close up of the area I wanted to start on:


Big scratch on hood I also tried to tackle:


Front fender scratch:


Drivers door scratch:


Rear passenger door driver’s side scratch:


First pass with M101 on speed 6 (red paint gone, some still in right scratch):




First pass wiped down:


Two more passes on the big scratch:



4-5 passes over the “Thief” scratch:




Close up’s:



Red paint on the plate:
 
WOW !!!

Hope she was worth it.

Some of your links weren't added correctly, but I was able to clik on em to see.

Repaint time
 
Damn. Thats terrible. If the car owner brought the damage on himself whats to say the car isnt going to get vandilized again?
 
IME , if the scratches have not gone through the CC, you can always try wetsanding(with care) with something very fine (i would start with3,000 grit to be safe). I know the "white" look of the scratches gives an initial impression of them going through clear coat, but i have found out that it is not always the case especially with the most recent repair i did on the whole side of a jet black truck (customer was going to get charged $1,200 for a repaint and i managed to remove/minimize 90% of the scratch without wet sanding a whole lot).

If the scratches did go through the CC, you can always try a VERY patient and time consuming application of touch up paint that will consist of delicately layering it up until you have enough to finely wet sand and even out/blend with the surrounding "healthy" area , then just polish carefully with M205 and a Polishing pad. I have done this with my PC with great results on jet Black vehicle door, a kid slammed his scooter's handle putting a scratch and dent on my door and the scratch was concealed pretty well after i was done with it. That's a lot of scratches, so you will need lots of patience and time(having a heat gun to aid in the curing of the touch up could minimize time spent on this).

Below is my Client's door where she thought she was going to have to pay the shop to get it repainted, this was one long scratch that went from her front fender all the way to her quarter panel with some of the areas being deeper (you can only notice those if you're at a certain angle and a handful of inches away). Surface prep work is VERY important when doing touch up cover up to ensure it'll last you a decent time before having to finally re-paint. Hope this helps and good luck!

*EDIT:Note that the below was wetsanded with 3k grit, followed by M105 on Yellow LC CCS Pad,then Orange, then White on a pc , 4" Pads. Touch up paint was not needed*

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IME , if the scratches have not gone through the CC, you can always try wetsanding(with care) with something very fine (i would start with3,000 grit to be safe). I know the "white" look of the scratches gives an initial impression of them going through clear coat, but i have found out that it is not always the case especially with the most recent repair i did on the whole side of a jet black truck (customer was going to get charged $1,200 for a repaint and i managed to remove/minimize 90% of the scratch without wet sanding a whole lot).

If the scratches did go through the CC, you can always try a VERY patient and time consuming application of touch up paint that will consist of delicately layering it up until you have enough to finely wet sand and even out/blend with the surrounding "healthy" area , then just polish carefully with M205 and a Polishing pad. I have done this with my PC with great results on jet Black vehicle door, a kid slammed his scooter's handle putting a scratch and dent on my door and the scratch was concealed pretty well after i was done with it. That's a lot of scratches, so you will need lots of patience and time(having a heat gun to aid in the curing of the touch up could minimize time spent on this).

Below is my Client's door where she thought she was going to have to pay the shop to get it repainted, this was one long scratch that went from her front fender all the way to her quarter panel with some of the areas being deeper (you can only notice those if you're at a certain angle and a handful of inches away). Surface prep work is VERY important when doing touch up cover up to ensure it'll last you a decent time before having to finally re-paint. Hope this helps and good luck!

*EDIT:Note that the below was wetsanded with 3k grit, followed by M105 on Yellow LC CCS Pad,then Orange, then White on a pc , 4" Pads. Touch up paint was not needed*

attachment.php

Thanks for the game plan! I'm going to try wet sanding for the first time (lol) and if that doesn't work out I'll try touch up paint.
 
Ha, leave the scratches on his car then...Karma always finds a way.

I would typically but he did over 100 hours of renovations for free at my new house, so I kinda owe it to him. It was just a stupid move on his part and he was way too drunk to think his actions trough before he did what he did. Although I'd never do that, no matter how drunk...
 
Thanks for the game plan! I'm going to try wet sanding for the first time (lol) and if that doesn't work out I'll try touch up paint.

You're welcome , your friend needs a repaint down the road most likely anyways, so i'd say this would be a great car to practice your wet sanding on! go for it. Get yourself a wet sanding block or sponge from Amazon(or locally if you can find it) so that your sanding is even and consistent as possible throughout the damaged area. Soak up the sand paper for a few hours to soften it up even more, get yourself a small squirt bottle with a soapy water mixture so you can keep lubing up the area as you're sanding. Use your wetsand block/sponge to squeegee the water off often to inspect your work (don't sand for like 5 minutes and THEN check, check your work often) .
 
That's why he isn't repainting it, and he asked me to do what I can as a favor.

Gotcha. You're a good friend - I respect you wanting to help/would do the same thing for a buddy.

Larry @ AMMO NYC did an interesting video on how to touch up deep key scratches which might be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2aC_oseMe4

And another on wet sanding a keyed hood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEhsuO2cKY

Good learning op for you and your foolish friend.

Let us know how it goes!
 
Yes! definitely watch Larry's Videos. I've watched both to see if he did anything new/different and the addition of using the thin filler is a great suggestion. His scratch repair on the black vehicle with the filler is a quicker solution to what i did(to my own vehicle when the scratch went through the paint). Since i repaired it on my own car and was able to wait for the paint to cure, I did it throughout the course of a couple of days so that i could build more layers of touch up with sanding in between them to aid in the bonding process. I was able to get a smoother/more blended in result thanks to the layering up (which is why i suggest patience is key).
 
Always help a good friend. A good friend bails you out of jail. A real good friend is sitting besides you saying "dame, that was fun!".
 
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