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Great advice. I will say though from personal experience, it is a tough job. My wife has an Eminent White Pearl RX which is a tri-coat - she had a tiny stone chip on the hood - I attempted to touch it up as you suggest and while it filled in nicely, the color just doesn't match and it's a Lexus touch up stick with separate base, mid and clear coat bottles I bought. Better than nothing though.
What is somewhat ironic is that, 30-40 years ago, before pearl whites became a thing, white vehicles (and black vehicles) were the easiest colors for which to get a virtually perfect match when touching up minor damage like stone nicks. All you had to do was to take a bit of care to fill the nick, and, unless you were looking at it from a few inches away, the repair was not detectable. Now, the pearl whites, along with other multi-stage pearl finishes, are the colors for which it is virtually impossible to get an undetectable match with touch-up paint.
What is somewhat ironic is that, 30-40 years ago, before pearl whites became a thing, white vehicles (and black vehicles) were the easiest colors for which to get a virtually perfect match when touching up minor damage like stone nicks. All you had to do was to take a bit of care to fill the nick, and, unless you were looking at it from a few inches away, the repair was not detectable. Now, the pearl whites, along with other multi-stage pearl finishes, are the colors for which it is virtually impossible to get an undetectable match with touch-up paint.
Something similar happened to me recently on my 5 week old ES. A cart hit me at Costco. When I came out a nice gouged dent paint missing an all about 2 inches in diameter. I paid $450 and had the door painted and blended. Pearl white. Would never know it happened.
Something similar happened to me recently on my 5 week old ES. A cart hit me at Costco. When I came out a nice gouged dent paint missing an all about 2 inches in diameter. I paid $450 and had the door painted and blended. Pearl white. Would never know it happened.
I wouldn’t do touch up if I were you. Either leave it like that or find a professional to do it. Many folks who work for dealer or garage does paint job on the side as their own personal business and can do it for a good price
Originally Posted by ChrisPh
Has anyone tried touch up paint to fix some scratches for your vehicles? This happened to my 2 weeks old '19 ES350 Fsport Atomic Silver. My wife parked this car in a gym parking lot, when she came out, she found out some dumb *** scratched her car and took off. I am planning to get some touch up paint from Lexus and fix it myself. Do you think if it can be DIY project?
I recommend looking into Dr Color Chip. In the past I've used a touch up pen but it always left a high spot that was very noticable. Dr Color Chip has a blending solution that evens out the touch up paint.
I recommend looking into Dr Color Chip. In the past I've used a touch up pen but it always left a high spot that was very noticable. Dr Color Chip has a blending solution that evens out the touch up paint.
Four or 5 years ago, I bought Dr. Color Chip kits for the colors of the 2 vehicles that I had at the time.
After trying to use the Dr. Color Chip on a couple of paint chips on the bumper of one of the cars, my conclusion was that, with good and careful technique, I was able to get a better looking repair with regular touch-up paint. With the Dr. Color Chip, the repaired area looked like there were a couple of bugs permanently smashed onto the bumper. Also, note that the Dr. Color Chip kits cost significantly more than regular touch-up paint.
The simple answer, in my opinion, is that there is no touch up kit or system that would adequately match or hide stone chips and especially, parking lot damage. In my almost 60 years of owning a car I've never seen anything that remotely comes close to a refinish job by a qualified body shop. In most case I think the touch up makes it worse. However, if the mismatched paint doesn't bother you, go for it...
The good news is that you can still have it painted if you don't like the touch up paint repair. I'm interested in what you think of the repair, so please let us know how it comes out!
The simple answer, in my opinion, is that there is no touch up kit or system that would adequately match or hide stone chips and especially, parking lot damage. In my almost 60 years of owning a car I've never seen anything that remotely comes close to a refinish job by a qualified body shop. In most case I think the touch up makes it worse. However, if the mismatched paint doesn't bother you, go for it...
provides some protection though even if it doesn't look perfect.
Touch-ups didn't help much. I just have to live with it.
Yeah unfortunately with a 3 or 4 stage paint your never going to find a match with touchup, it will always stick out like a sore thumb.
I'm sure that parking lot has cameras, usually you need to call the police to go over the footage from that day. If they find the make and model, you can check the gym parking lot regularly for the same car and see if it has any car with damage in the spot it hit you, take pictures along with the license plate and you can take them to court and they can get charged for a hit/run.
Something like this happened to my car except damage was the hood was dented, I had a bodyshop fix it. Now I have a front and rear dashcam that also has a backup battery so it records all the time.
