Should I repair this scrape on my new car immediately?
August 6, 2015 2:20 PM   Subscribe

So some wonderful individual in a parking lot has christened my new car with its first scrape. Photo here. Is it sufficiently serious/deep that I should get it repainted immediately to avoid rusting issues? And if so, is it at all feasible to attempt a patch job myself? The internet at large is inconclusive on both counts.
posted by The Card Cheat to Travel & Transportation (7 answers total)
 
Is this actually a brand new car, or just new to you? Maybe it's just me, but this would drive me nuts on a new car, and I'd get it fixed right away (I've had several such things fixed over the years). It's not going to get cheaper or easier to fix if you wait (it might also not get any worse, but it's definitely not going to get better). And also IMHO I would never try fixing something like this myself unless the car was already pretty scratched up and looking rough.

I don't know about the rusting factor, just that this would make me mad every time I saw it....
posted by primethyme at 2:35 PM on August 6, 2015


Response by poster: I've had the car (which is brand new) for just over a month. It's annoying for sure, but I'm less concerned about the aesthetic damage to the car than I am the potential for further damage.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:53 PM on August 6, 2015


I've had a scrape just like this on my car for a year that I've ignored. It hasn't rusted or anything like that, but I also lived in a place that did not rain much, up until the last few months. Have you tried washing it/scrubbing to see what is just paint that got rubbed onto your vehicle from the car that hit it vs. if it actually scraped down to the metal?
posted by AppleTurnover at 3:00 PM on August 6, 2015


It's hard to tell from your photo, but are we looking at a door panel or a bumper? Because rust is only an issue if it's metal underneath, and I'm not sure that's metal? It looks like it could be plastic bodywork.

Again, hard to tell from the photo but it could look a lot worse than it actually is. What looks like the layer of material under the paint of your car could just be plastic from the bumper of the car that hit you. So no guarantee here, but "that'll buff right out" could actually be the case.

Also, doing anything yourself that isn't just buffing, (i.e., painting) is going to be a (visual) disaster on that large of an area. I mean depending on how much you care. But it's not going to look right. Even if you get it done professionally, just keep in mind that you're getting what you pay for.

If it were me, I'd wash the car, spending extra time on that area to see how much is actual paint damage, and wax it up. Get quotes from there.
posted by danny the boy at 3:56 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't know how long you plan to keep this car, but Click and Clack's rules for making a car last forever are:
  1. Buy the right car.
  2. Maintain it.
  3. Treat it gently. Don't be a roughneck.
  4. Fix things before they break.
  5. Fix everything that breaks.
  6. Don't give up when the goin' gets tough.
If you want to keep the car long-term, #5 says to get it repaired now.
posted by davcoo at 8:16 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


It won't hurt to fix it.
It might hurt to leave it alone.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:47 AM on August 7, 2015


If your profile is accurate, you live in the north.

Where it snows.

Where they will use salt to keep the roads clear.

Get it fixed and repainted before that happens, because sodium chloride + bare steel = ferric oxide & ferrous oxide. AKA rust, and lots of of it.

If you can't afford to get it fully fixed properly, you need to sand it down to clean metal -- and by clean, we mean "bright and shiny" clean and then hit it with primer. This will make it ugly, but will seal the metal, which will stop the rust. Do this on a hot sunny day so that all the moisture will be driven off. Later, you can then have the bodywork done and make it look good again, but you need to get that metal sealed up before the winter comes, and the wet and salt comes with it and starts eating that metal.

The damage looks really minor. It's not a "it'll buff out" level, but I don't think they'll even have to pull metal out. The panel gap above it looks just fine. They'll sand it down to bare metal, prime it, build it back up with a tiny bit of body putty, sand it again to get the profile right, prime that to get a good base for the paint, then paint. You won't even be able to see that it happened.

But yes, get it fixed, or at least sanded and sealed, before winter.
posted by eriko at 8:22 AM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


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