Touchup Paint Removal

S

schmatt

New member
I just bought a used car. There are a few spots that need to be touched up. But there are also a bunch of places where the previous owner bought some touchup paint and did the job himself. A very poor job at that. They were just painted in, and they are the wrong color. Just because the paint is red does not mean it's the same color. It's pretty noticeable. Anyway, I wanted to somehow remove this old touchup paint and do it right. Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance.
 
schmatt- Welcome to Autopia!



I've run into this too, pretty frustrating, huh?



Best thing I've tried was to *very* (and I mean *VERY*) carefully sand the touch up paint down with very fine sandpaper. My favorite is the Meguiar's Unigrit stuff, it's a lot better than 3M. I'd get both the solid block and some regular paper. My block is 2500 grit and my paper is 3000 grit. Use these products *wet* using some car wash solution for lube. After you use such stuff you'll have to follow up with something like 3M PI-III RC (05933) and then a finer polish; the sanding will leave, well, sanding marks.



Fix the "repair" first, then try your own touching up. Once your touch up paint dries, you might want to use the same sandpaper, compound, etc. on *it* to help make it less noticeable.



Work very slowly so you don't take off more paint than you intend to.
 
Try Laquer Thinner and apply with a cotton swab. That will melt the touch-up right off. I also use Thinner to "level" touch-up areas and top with a clear coat. IMHO it works almost as well as sanding, and you have less damage.



NOTE: This method is good for fully cured clear coat finishes!! I don't know about other finishes durability to the laquer thinner.
 
Accumulator- great advice as always.



schmatt- FWIW you might want to try a Groit's Spot Sanding Tool (PN 50303A) to remove small paint touch-up removal

JonM
 
I have used Langka and Mothers touch up remover, removes all the touch up paint with no damage to the cars paint.



kbshadow

Stockton Ca
 
Thanks!!! I'll have to try that when my new touchup paint gets here. It looks like lacquer thinner is the place to start. Then move on to sanding if that doesn't work. Thanks for the tips again!



So it does it matter how long the touchup paint has been on the car for the lacquer thinner to work? I really have no idea how long it's been on there.
 
No it doesn't. Be careful with l. thinner. It softens the paint real fast. It also will remove the touch up paint almost instantly.
 
i've taken out 5 year touch up paint blobs with langka. just rub rub rub rub rub rub ....



it'll come out.
 
Lacquer Thinner may not have an apparent effect... but it WILL compromise the clearcoat over time (3 months? 6 months?)



Tread lightly!!!



Jim
 
With the Mother's/Langka I recall a tip (David B's?) to use a sueded style mf around the card it comes with. The suede style mf apparently does a better job leveling the paint blob than regular mf or cotton t-shirt material
 
Get some 1200 grit sandpaper and wetsand the chipped area until it is gone or dull. Get the right color paint and touch it up. Wait for it to dry and wetsand again, then buff the area and you will never be able to tell it was touched up.



Good luck,

Sellncars
 
The thinner works well, but keep it confined to the area of paint you want to remove. Have a spray bottle of water to clean the area immediately after you remove the paint, then use a good cleaner/polish around that area. You should be OK after doing that. I have cleaned up touch-up areas on my Audi and have had no problems.
 
I've found that Prep-Sol will remove some touch-up paints too.



Should be more gentle than lacquer thinner since it's made for cleaning paint but I don't think the thinner will be a problem if you keep it light and confined to just the areas in question.





PC.
 
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