I'm a fanatic about taking care of my car especially the original paint work. My car has never seen a paint shop other than to recondition the front and rear bumper covers last year. Luckily, my paint has a deep luster even after 17 years. Since I've owned the car, I have the car detailed (including clay bar and polish twice a year). When I can the car stays out of the sun and is garaged when possible. It has 134,000 miles currently. Recently I noticed a few scratches on my front passenger side fender, one of which was extremely deep. It was noticeable even at 10 feet away. I DID NOT WANT TO PAINT THE FENDER. As my car has no paint work on any metal, I went to my trustworthy Infiniti Authorized body shop and asked if it would be possible to eliminate or drastically reduce the scratches with possibly some touch up. I viewed a number of videos on you tube showing wet sanding helping if not almost eliminating deep scratches without paintwork. One scratch was so deep it actually left a depression in the fender.. most likely from a shopping cart. I did try to touch up the deep scratch which actually looked worse. I dropped off my car, picked it up 2 days later and all I can say is I was amazed!!!!!!. Between the paintless dent removal and the superb work of this body shop...at any distance other than standing over the car within a few feet, the scratch can no longer be seen. Fanatical owners always know where to look for their imperfections, but here is an example of 2 deep scratches on 17 year old silver paint virtually disappearing other than extremely close examination. This was a result of careful wet sanding and buffing out after. I would not suggest a layman doing this as it is easy to remove the clear as well as paint resulting with a bigger problem after. Once again, I escaped the body shop paint and my car is still original and looks close to showroom new. I'm a happy camper. I hope this might help another forum member from needlessly having to paint over an entire body panel and or blend into various body panels to remove imperfections. Of course, sometimes there is no other choice. I was lucky.

 

It's nice that you got a good result, especially with silver, a color difficult to blend well. I used to do a bit of paint and body work years ago and, as you say, it is best left to the experts.

 

This didn't happen, since we don't see any pictures.

Just kidding! Take some pictures and post please. If you have some before pictures, that would be great!

 

I had a nice big door ding - son opened a door right into a concrete pole. I can say the dent repair guys work for themselves. So a dealer will up-charge a good bit. So you can find on facebook or google etc - just make an appointment with them ad meet at a dealer location etc. I think $150 was for fixing and paint on the big door ding, and fixed several scratches. Also included a touch up paint jar. He just did it in the lot while I waited. Looked beautiful!

 

Cost me $50 to the Paint Shop and $50 to dentless paint removal. For me...it's a bargain.

 

Believe it or not you can remove fairly deep scratches from your paint using ...... wait for it ...... WD40
Don't know why it works of how it works but I do know it removed scratches from my paint that polishing compound or clay couldn't !

 

Don't know if you would consider this necessarily paint work, but I have had fairly good results by filling a long scratch that is through the clear coat with factory touch up paint. Several thin coats with a fine artist brush or tooth pick built up just higher than the surface. Wet sanding is then used to even it out with the surrounding paint. A final buff with 105 then 205 makes it look excellent.

 

Final buff is with a buffer? Like Porter Cable or other?

 

Pics please.