I tried to remove a scratch and now it’s worse

[Julian24110]

Some scrote keyed the rear wing of my Z4.

After watching a load of you tube videos and practicing on a smaller scratch on another car, I had a go at getting the scratch out. I’m guessing I pressed too hard with the wet and dry paper.

Is the only solution to this respraying the wing or can it be salvaged by me on my driveway?

 

[Zulu4]

Have you tried using T-cut on it ? (Or a fine cutting compound)

 

[parabolica]

Looks like you’ve taken the clear coat off; any attempt to fix that by yourself isn’t going to look great I’m afraid (been there, done that). I ended up getting a salvage wing that was in perfect nick off eBay and replaced it - easy to do. Before scratching it, the old wing already had a bad paint repair on it anyway so was win win for me.

 

[Julian24110]

Yep that’s what I thought but wondered if there was some magic trick. Since I touched it up with paint then rubbed it with 2k / 5K / 7k paper I used G3 compound and whilst it’s now nice and shiny the clear coat damage is still visible. It was rubbing the touch up paint with the 2K paper that did the damage. I’ll compare the price of salvage wings with the price of spraying. My front bumper could do with spraying to get rid of the road rash so that’s probably an excuse to get that done too...

 

[Zedebee]

T-cut isn’t going to cut it on this occasion, that’s a deep scratch. Depending on how perfect you want it, you could have a go (you’ve started already). You’ll need to fill the scratch, sand it down very fine, spray with primer on the metal, then base coat, then lacquer. The problem is your paint is 15 years old and will now be a slightly different hue to the original colour so a repair is always likely to be noticeable. Alternatively you could try a “Chips Away” type repairer, or go the whole hog and get the whole panel resprayed (and maybe adjacent panels blended for the reason given above).

If you’re a have-a-go person, have a go; if you make a hash of it you needed to get it resprayed anyway.

 

[Lynchy]

Nothing you can do to salvage that I’m afraid. It will need repainting

 

[AnilS]

OP, if you are anywhere near Worcestershire, you can pop over to me and I can try machine polishing to see if it can be improved?

 

[Ole gits rule]

For me it would be a case of get the wing and front bumper painted professionally and have the car look right, would not touch chips away with a barge pole

 

[buzyg]

You where on a loser before you started with a deep scratch like that on a metallic silver. It needs the scratch sorting to bring it back level with the surounding surface. Then painting, then clear coating. I'd get it into a shop and expect to pay a couple of hundred.

Hope it"s sorted soon.

 

[Julian24110]

Cheers all. That’s why I had a go myself, I thought it would need professionally sorting so I wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t need doing anyway. Wing and bumper respray it is then!

 

[HU51A_FU]

You could flat and polish the whole panel by hand but just beware go careful otherwise youll burn through the lacquer and into the paint, worse case just get the whole panel resprayed. Looks like its in the middle of the panel so you can get away with edge to edging once the scratch has been repaired.

 

[Julian24110]

Thanks, quote today for £200 to respray the whole wing. They’ll do the front not bumper at the same time for £350. Sounds like a plan

 

[Ole gits rule]

Thats seems like the best plan all round to get the car to look right