Arrrrgghhh!!!!

[anysia]

to top off my wonderful day (long story about the rest of it...) anyway, to top it off, i was in unfamiliar territory tonight. i missed my turn off, so i drove down the road looking for a place to turn around.... found a school, thought well, this should be a good place right?! THINK AGAIN!!!! the school had some lovely chains across the driveway with no reflectors on it and no lights on it. found that out the hard way.

fortunately mezerna seems to be lessening the appearance of the scratches, but they are still there.

do you guys think it needs painted or do you think a good buff job at a decent detailer might do the trick for most of it????

i am so TICKED right now.

here's a couple of pics. more to come.... have to take off my work clothes and go work on it some more. unfortunately i don't have any touch up paint handy either.
:censored: :censored: :censored:

[anysia]

this is about the wrost area. i was coming around a bend, which is why it's all on the drivers side like this.... myh car was at an angle to the chain...

[princess]

That looks pretty nasty, kiddo! I sure hope they're more surface than they look!:bawling: After a bunch of hard work, maybe there'll only be a little left for the pros to deal with......

my fingers are crossed!

I feel for you!!!!:boohoo:

[Inspector1]

Ouch!! :eek: Bummer!!:( Looks like its to the primer... Hard to tell in picture. Does your fingernail hang in the scratches??
It looks like it may need refinish:sorry: :sorry:

I1:sorry:

[anysia]

ok here's the "afters" after running about 4 coats of mezerna intensive polich on it, and 2 quick aios....

most of it appears to be on the surface. you can;t even feel the ones on the hood...

here's the hood.

[anysia]

the hood has the most scratches, but they're barely there.


here's the worst area, where it is dinged up a bit (alot smaller of an area than it looks though-i stuck the camera right up next to it.... it's right where the pillar, the hood, and the side meet.)

[anysia]

and the bumper-the other part where it is a definite scratch, but still not very deep.... (had deeper ones on my 00 civic when my sister hit the base of a mailbox and it was fixable for $80, and turned out pretty good.)

[anysia]

would it have killed them to put a no turn around sign out there?? or maybe some reflectors on the chain??? or maybe some reflective PAINT on the chain??? how about leaving the lights on when it's dark out????

i mean i was dumb for trying to turn around in that kind of place, but still!!!!!!!! some warning prior to hearing the chain hit the car would've been really nice! :bawling:

[treadhead 1952]

Sorry to see your fine little ride chewed on by ill fortune. If you can hang a nail in the scratches, ain't no touch up paint gonna help, like I1 pointed out, it's a repair and refinish. You might check out a few new car dealers in the area you live to see if they have any spot repair specialists that their used car departments use. These guys are really good and usually can use an airbrush and miracle gooes to cover that sort of thing up to where you won't notice it as much. Since your ride is such a dark color it is gonna show to some degree either way, just depends on how close you are, sorry

[anysia]

now the hard part, finding a reputable place in this area... i know a guy who does really good work, but apparently doesn't agree with repainting areas with scratches like these... he refused to take on my first civic's bumper ding. he insisted the new paint would just peel right off within months, so i should just "live with it". (i bought a bra for the car and covered it up! won't work this time though. :( ) i did end up getting the civic repaired when some lady rearended me. i took it to a local delaership who has an in house body shop and they agreed to fix the front when they did the rear.

i might head back to them, i haven't decided yet. i'm scared to let anyone near the more visable hood and side!!! the bumper will be fine, worse case scenario-get another bra! ;)

but i guess it can't get much worse than it is now....

bonus, if they buff out the slight scratches on the hood, maybe my water spots will get buffed out as well.... trying to look at the positives here!

guess it's time ot contact the husband and find out who repaired his car when the guy side swiped him. his scratches were much much worse! now that it's fixed, you can't tell anything ever happened-of course his car is silver. they had repainted the affected areas.

[anysia]

so i got to see ti in the daylight this afternoon. it was cloudy, so that softened the blow. well, i was VERY pleasantly surprised to notice that you couldn't see them from a distance, or even up pretty close. my camera with flash and the direct light in the garage that i had shining on it really made them alot more noticeable.

i'm sure they'll be way too obvious in sunlight. good news is its supposed to be cloudy through the weekend i think!

guess whos car will be dirty alot until those get fixed?? dirt will help hide them!!! :rolleyes:

[jbuffethed]

OUCH! :bawling:

[anysia]

so looking into body shops...

some might replace panels of the car, some might try wet sanding and repainting.... any opinions on wet sanding the deeper scratches and repainting versus replacing those 2 panels (bumper and side)??

noone has looked at the car yet, so i don't have any real determination on how to best handle it all.... i know replacing panels would be alot more expensive, but in the long run would it be alot better?? :confused:

[BenjiBoy650]

Originally posted by anysia
in the long run would it be alot better?? :confused:

How long is long, and how long is you keeping the car????

[anysia]

How long is long, and how long is you keeping the car????

:lmao: with me, ya never know!!! i guess all i want right now is for it to look new again, not scratched!!!!! i'd say i won't trade it in for atleast 5 years, but i won't make any garauntees! ;)

[anysia]

hmm, i never posted my pic of the headlight itself...

[VTECaddict]

take it to a good detailer and see if they can buff it out. my accord had a scratch on the passenger side front door before delivery and the dealer took it out no problem. i dont know what they did, but the scratch was rough and pretty big, maybe 1cm wide at the widest point and 10-15cm long.

[Inspector1]

Avoid shops that want to replace anything. Overkill!!!
A good shop should be able to sand out smooth and repaint.
If the metal is not bent then there is no need to replace anything............

I1:)

[anysia]

gawd, i've been putting off going to any place because i HATE handing over my car!! (i now have princess's problem with not wanting anyone else to touch my car!!!) i know i can't fix it myself completely so i HAVE to go.... :bawling:

[princess]

I don't mean to be contagious!;)

[Inspector1]

anysia,
check out this product. It gets very good reviews on detailing sites.
I am going to order a kit to try out.
http://www.langka.com/index.cfm?page=home.cfm

I1:)

[anysia]

sounds almost too good ot be true... but i might just order it and give it a shot!!! it beats letting someone else mess with my car and is alot cheaper! andi guess worse case scernaio would be that it doesn't work and i still have to visit a body shop, right? :D they should still be able to fix it even i somehow manage to mess it up more first! :blush:

[anysia]

BUT, how much stuff should i order? both kits? i think ihave ot look at the site more... i hink i might try the wet sand thing for the hood where it's all surface scratches and the other kit for the deeper ones...... decisions, decisions.... :bawling:

[anysia]

i ordered both the wet sand kit and the other one... about $63 with priority s&h.

crossing my fingers that this takes care of everything!!!

:cool:

i'll give it a shot and post some after pics either way! hopefully it gets here quick! my dirty car is really bugging me!! :rolleyes:

bonus, if this takes care of the scratches in the paint, then i can possibly spring for a new headlight to get rid of those scratches! ;)

[anysia]

ok i think i need alot more patience in order to make the langka kit work!

first, i bought the wet sand kit for the hood scratches that seem to be only in the clearcoat. i tried it out on the inside of a door frame and i can't seem to return the finish to match the rest, so i refuse to touch the hood with it for now! :bawling:

now for the blob eliminator kit. this does seem to work really well IF you don't have a gazillion scratches right next to each other going in different directions! (as is my case). after two attempts i'm about ready to give up. i keep pulling all of the touch up paint out of the scratches!

on the plus side, it did work really well on a couple of small chips and a small scratch! :D so i would give it a thumbs up for small scratch/chip repair! worth the $38 to keep those types of repairs looking really good!

the jury i out for the doozy of a job that i have to take care of though.... :rolleyes:

[Inspector1]

Thanks for the follow up anysia.. I didn't order my kit yet and was kind of waiting to see if you thought it would work for you! And if not was going to offer to buy from you if it didn't do what you needed.

I1;)