How Deep Is Your Scratch? The Four Levels
Not every scratch is the same. The fix depends on how deep the scratch goes, and you can tell yourself with a fingernail test:
- Clear coat scratch. Your fingernail glides across without catching. Usually polishable for $100–250. Often we can buff it out same-day.
- Clear-through to color. You can see a different shade in the scratch. Requires a touch-up or spot blend, $200–500.
- Color-through to primer. White or gray showing at the bottom of the scratch. Requires primer, color, and clear refinish, $400–900 per panel.
- Through to bare metal. You see metal in the scratch. Must be treated and refinished immediately or it will rust. $500–1,200+ per panel.
When DIY Touch-Up Pens Make It Worse
The dealer touch-up pen is a tempting $20 fix, and we'd love to tell you it works. Mostly it doesn't, for three reasons:
- The color in the bottle is rarely a perfect match. Even the same paint code drifts across production runs.
- The application leaves a raised bump. Once dry, the pen sits proud of the surrounding clear coat and catches the eye more than the original scratch.
- It doesn't bond like real paint. The touch-up fails, peels or yellows, within 1–2 years.
If the scratch matters to you visually, a real refinish is the only way. If it's purely to prevent rust on bare metal, a touch-up pen is acceptable as a stop-gap until you can get it in.
Our Scratch Repair Process
- Assessment. We determine the depth and whether polishing, spot repair, or panel refinish is the right path.
- For polishable scratches: Machine polish with progressively finer compounds until the scratch is gone and the gloss is restored.
- For deeper scratches: Sand the area, apply primer where needed, blend computer-matched paint, clear coat, and cure in our booth.
- Final wet-sand and buff for a seamless finish.