Well guys, last night at our basketball game, some student (for lack of a clean word) keyed my car. Not just a small one, but one that goes from the passenger door all the way down to the fuel door. I called a faculty member and he told me to talk to the Dean of Students because he rents the security and crowd patrol. I guess they'll file a report with the police and such but I'm still not happy that I have to pay for this damage, insurance or not.

I'm bout to go wash the car and I'll snap a picture of it when I'm done and post it up.

Any ideas on what I can do? I know it wasn't a student from my school as we were not allowed to leave when the opposing team did. I don't have any enemies at either school so it probably isn't someone I know.

-rockstate

 

that sucks. but i can't think of anything you can possibly do about it.

 

Rock,

I feel your pain - this is one of my biggest fears - dunno why, guess it has something to do with how easy it is to do and how much it messes up your ride. It's just pure hate - nothing accidental about it.

It happened to me once, many moons ago.

There is the obvious fix (body shop) but since the word 'student' appears in your post, I'll assume you are existing on limited funds (not meant to be an insult - been there myself )

When it happened to me, the scratches did not go completely through the paint to expose metal or primer. All I did was wash/wax/polish the affected area with products that were meant to hide scratches. I cannot remember exactly what I used (this was 17+ years ago) but believe it or not, they actually worked - temporarily. They were not a permanent fix - if I let the car weather, the scratches would reappear. But as long as I kept it reasonably clean and waxed, the scratches were minimized to the point that the casual observer would not notice them.

You might try doing an online search. Or go to meguiars.com - they have forums over there - and post the same question and ask what they would recommend. There are also several auto detailing forums out there (the links are all on my other computer, which I am not in front of right now.) Try searching on 'detailing forum' and see what you get. Some of these are frequented by professional detailers - you'd be surprised at the tricks they can come up with. If you have trouble finding them, post or PM me.

Good luck,
Rob

 

Yeah, the odd thing is, I don't have any enemies at my school or the opposing school. I took down my parking tag and my radar detector, which I'm glad I did. I'm sure that scumbag would have stolen my Valentine.

It's a longgg, long scratch all the way down from the back door to the fuel door. My car is the Medium Wedgewood Blue and the scratch is practically white so they definately got it good. I can't even describe how furious I am but God help whoever that may be if I ever find out who did it.

I'll go ahead and take a picture tomorrow when I have some light. Just now how do I break it to my dad who is coming back in town later tonight? I don't think he'll be too happy.

How much do you all think it would be to fix this long, unattractice scratch? The sad thing is, I was planning on driving this thing til it died but a part of me died when I saw that scratch.

Through the good times and the bad,
-rockstate

 

I feel your pain, it is not funny at all. My wife had our 99 F 150 at work two summers ago. One of the summer help high school kids got mad at my wife and then thought it was cute to go out to the parking lot with 6 tubes of super glue, that he drizzled all over the hood, front fenders and both rear box panels. Super glue eats thru the clear coat and then into the base coat. What a royal mess. The insurance paid to have the whole truck fixed (sanded down and reshot with paint). We found out eventually who did it and had the police go out to his home to visit. I went along for the ride. The police spoke to the kid (who was a smart mouth to the police)and his father, then before we left the father wrote a check to cover my deductible with the agreement I would not press any further charges. I know the kid probably got his butt kicked, because if the police had not been there, I think he may have gotten a whoopin' on the spot, by his father. I wanted to whoop his butt, but knew if I did, I would be in jail for a long time if I did.


Just bide your time, you may find out who did it and then let the law handle it. Most law agentcies will gladly help you out. Also then let your insurance agent know also, because they may want to press charges to get their money back also, along with your deductible.
Good luck and keep your ears open, stupid people who do stupid things can not keep their stupid mouth shut, they end up bragging about their stupidness eventually.

 

My company, topoftheline.com sponsors the Detailing Forum for this site, so I was notified of your dilemma. Unfortunately, there are no products that can repair a scratch reaching to the primer. The paint is missing and must be replaced. This requires a professional touch-up "artist" or a full, body shop repair.

Even colored waxes are not worth the effort and very short lived. Light to medium scratches can be removed as long as they are not below the clear coat. In that case, the clear coat has to be replaced. The thickness of your paint is thinner than a piece of paper! Doesn't take much to remove it.

 

I'm sorry to hear. However, I'm glad everything worked out for you. One of my friends last summer thought it'd be funny to put maple syrup and smear bananas all over my '03 4runner that I was driving back then. Thankfully it came off without chipping any of the paint.

You do bring up an excellent point; whoever did it will be sure to talk about it and hopefully I will get word of it so I can bring it up again. I guess plan of action is just to get the scratch repainted as my Dad does not want to pay for a deductible (probably 'bout as high as the job itself).

I took a few minutes to look around on your website and it has a lot of useful products on there. When I first saw it, I instantly knew it couldn't be buffed out which was a bit disheartening.


So guys, I broke the news to my dad tonight and he basically said he was thankful that I wasn't driving his '07 Sport Trac because mine is a lot older. I think I'm going to take it to a shop here and have it appraised on Monday. I'll get back to you all with prices.

Thanks again,
-rockstate

 

I had an egg thrown on the hood of my 240Z once, and it screwed up the paint.

 

Well guys, I got some pics taken. Here they are:








It's a deepin' ...

-rockstate

 

That is horrible. I feel bad for you. Where I live(N.Y.C) you could get you car keyed up like that any day of the week, for the stupidest reasons. I hope you find the sob that did it and take him to the proper authorities.
The best advice i can give you is to try and have the car compunded and then waxed and glazed to see if that can help eliminate or hide your scratch. Ive had a similar scratch on my rear quarter panel(although it was done accidentally). It is amazing how much better a scartch will look if you take very good care in applying touch up paint. Although repainting the affected panels would be the best way to repair the damage done, you should definitely look into either trying to "buff" the scratches out, or carefully touch them up and them color sand them in with a very fine sandpaper and lots and lots of water. Followed up by an extensive polish. Good luck brother! I feel your pain.

 

Thanks for the ideas, Greenscobie. I talked to a local paint shop, "Best technitions in the US," and he said $1500 to get it fixed would be top of the line. Repainting the door, the back quarter panel (all metal pertaining to the quarter panel), as well as blending the driver's door. The other option from this joint would be for about $150 and they'd just "touch it up." I'm calling back here in a few to find out exactly what touching up would entail but I'm definately going to mention all the good advice you guys have given me and find out more information.

I guess I could always go with MAACO. I called them and they wouldn't give me any quotes over the phone but I finagled the guy to give me some numbers. My guess to have it done "top of the line" would be somewhere in the $200-300 range.

What do you guys think I should do? I don't want to spend $1500 but I don't want to go MAACO if they won't do as good of a job as the $150 from the "best technitions."

Thanks again,
-rockstate

 

I would start with the least expensive way first. Wet sand the scratch with 2000 grit or med to fine grit rubbing compound (3M compounds work best), your goal is to remove as much of the scratch without going through the entire clear. Then go with a polishing compound, and last a wax. This will minimize the amount of touch-up needed.
Good luck.

 

Yeah, I think this job will require a pro. Get an estimate, maybe your Comprehensive coverage will pay some of it minus the deductible. It's vandalism. Good luck.

 

Thanks guys for all your replies. If wetsanding involves any sort of tool then that choice would instantly be out of my price range haha. Hopefully that package for 150 frosties won't be too bad and will take care of my needs of not wanting it to stand out as bad but still not be able to see a line of touch up paint where the scratch was.

-rockstate

 

I hate that. I know how you feel. Way back in high school (2 years ago) some kid decided to kick my 1987 F-150. The funny thing is that he didn't know I was in it. I know to the normal person one would say "Why do you care, it is all beat up anyway?" That's not the point. The point is to take care of what you have and make it look good. Needless to say my friend had to pull me off of him. I'm not a mean person at all but something snapped in my head that day. I've had my 2000 F-150 for just over two years now and it has stayed pretty clean (buggies hitting it, car doors) up until 2 Saturdays ago. Some old lady thought she could make a turning lane and the mirror on her Toyota Camry (of all things) caught the left taillight and drug it down the side to the fuel door. it's not that bad because she was at fault. The car demons couldn't let me get away that easily- the other day I noticed a huge dent in my front bumper. I haven't hit anything. It looks like someone hit it in a parking lot. I hope you find out who scratched yours. It's not been a good few weeks for my truck.
-Matt