[SOLVED] Q: about paint scratches on 850

hi

some ba*tard has scratched the near side 2 doors of my 850, think it was with a stone ect, not too deep but cannot remove with polish, anyone know of something that will make it look better, other than respray, tried something called mquires step 2 polish, but it did improve it, but scratches still there. the car has wine colour metalic paint.

btw, live in the uk.

colin

I'm a little confused. Do you mean in lieu of repainting? If so, why not just repaint?

Not sure what Step 2 polish is, but I guess it may be similar to Turtle Wax Colour Magic - a coloured wax polish. Complete waste of money IMO.

I did see a product once that was like a wax crayon that filled in scratches. This may be a bit better than Colour Magic, but won't be permanent. I think the trick of these products is to disguise the whiteness of the scratch - sometimes I wonder if a similarly coloured permanent marker pen would work as well.

If the scratches have not gone below the top layer of paint or lacquer, you could try a fine rubbing compound, applied with a damp, soft cloth and plenty of elbow grease. This paste is a very very fine abrasive that is used to take imperfections out of paint finishes. Take care with it - it is possible to go on rubbing right through the paint, though modern paints are quite tough.

Volvo will probably be able to sell you a tube of touch-up paint with a little brush, but it can be hard to get a good finish with these, particulary on this sort of damage, and especially if the top coat is lacquer. Going over this with rubbing compound to smooth off the finish may help.

If you do go for a respray, make sure the workshop is a good one - a poor paint finish, or slightly mismatching colour will make it look worse that ever.

I actually read a consumer review of that once and it said it was a waste of money -- same results as if -- as you say -- you'd taken a crayon to your car.

I just got some touchup paint from paintscratch.com. They use the color code for your car to match the paint exactly and send it in either brush or pen form, with the clearcoat. They matched the paint on my teal 240 *exactly*.

I got volvo color matched touch up paint and then used a product called "Langka Blob Remover"

The stuff works really well...for DEEP scratches. The instructions warn that you need a deep scratch to "hold" the paint. For lighter scratches it wasn't so good. Basically with light scratches it is very easy to remove all the paint that you blob on while you are rubbing.

-Atif

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