It was raining last night, vision was poor, and the girl whom I'm dating now distracted me a little on the passenger side; as a result, I hit a pole covered with concrete while I was reversing (at extremely low speed). Please see the pictures; she is now wounded. Can you all please assist? I need some advice on fixing her up. My friend's friend who works at this shop will take a look at her and provide me some suggestions. It looks like the entire door and side skirt will need to be re-painted. I'd like to find out whether my car will look the same as before after repainting it. I heard that the original paint will need to be removed completely and then the door/side skirt will be primed, repainted, and coated, is this correct?

 

I would say, leave it. I ran off the edge of the road and screwed the whole passenger side skirt up on my partners 13 ES. Doesn't affect the performance or ride.

 

If you have a little DIY in you, get a scratch repair kit. I've used Turtle Wax Scratch repair kit on my IS already and job came out 95%. If I were to redo it, I'd get it to 100%. For 20$ and and hour or so of your time might be worth it for you. If the scratch is deep (which it appears to be), you'll need Lexus touchup paint to fill in some color.

 

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, the scratches are pretty deep, unfortunately. Does anyone have any experience with having the entire door (of your previous car) re-painted?

 

If you have a bodyshop that uses micro paint technology when reparing, they can probably fix that for around 500$.
They basicaly just paint the area where the damage is, and it looks 99% ok.

 

What is micro paint technology? And why do most people say that the entire door has to be repainted and not just the damaged area?


Anyway, I just went to a shop that was recommended by a friend. The guy told me that he could fix the door and side skirt for $600, and they will look as good as before. He would have to strip off the paint of the entire door and side skirt and re-paint them.

However, if someone were to use a paint sensor device to check out the paint, that person would immediately discover the door and side skirt have been repainted.

For now, he put some touch up paint for me, and he suggested that if I'm later still uncomfortable about such minor damage, then go back to him for a re-paint. I will just wait and see.

 

Ouch, for 600$ and knowing the entire door and skirt would not have the original factory baked on paint any longer, I would definitely use the scratch repair kit. All you've got to lose is 20$ and an hour or two of your time, but if it works and you get the results you want, you get lifelong bragging rights and DIY experience points as the icing on the cake

 

if you can see primer, it's gonna be a repaint. no scratch kit will bring any deep damage back from the dead.

 

I'm thinking about repainting the side skirt and see how it will look like. The side skirt is just plastic, and my discomfort level isn't as high as the door.

 

i like the fact that you took a pic of the perp...

 

True, all by itself the kit won't work - you will need touch up paint first, then the kit. It's stated on the box and in the instructions. My scratches went down to the black plastic (front bumper bottom) and looks like new after this process.

 

Try googleing "smart repair" (small to medium area repair technique)
http://www.carmedic.co.uk/news/2013/...s-smart-repair

Not sure if it excist any companies in the US that does this kind of repair work.
Basically, they just paint the damaged area, but make it blend in almost perfect with the old paint.

 

For small rock chips, you could probably fill them in....but, unless you have experience doing "touch ups", leave it to the pros! A good body shop will repair it so that you will not be able to tell.