How to do a Car Paint Repair

Its always a smart idea to do a quick car paint repair to take care of paint chips or scratches on your truck or car. They always get worse and rust starts to eat away at your metal and its an easy fix. Take care of chips and dings in your car or truck before it’s too late and its easy to do. We can walk you through the steps to take care of the problem before they’ll turn to rust before your eyes. Then you’ll have bigger problems, like buying a new vehicle.

Car Paint Repair in 6 Easy Steps:

Step 1 – Do a quick walk around the car or truck to locate all the dings and scratches, if you want you can create a little drawing of the vehicle with all the problem areas. This will also help you determine how much paint you will need. Most of the time this is a very small can with an applicator brush right inside the can.

Step 2 – Get out your favorite micro cloth and wash all chips with soap and water to get rid of any dirt or debris that maybe located in or around the chips. After the area looks cleaned and dry, you can rub a dab of automotive polish over the chip to gently soften any ragged edges. Just a few swirls or so will do the job. Too much rubbing could damage the clearcoat over the paint and make a cloudy mess, so don;t over do it, we just want the area to be clean and ready for a fresh coat of touch up.

Step 3  – Clean the finish with denatured alcohol. Don’t flood it with alcohol. Just a few wipes with a soft cloth will do. The alcohol will remove any wax or remaining grime. Again, easy does it here… we are not soaking the rag, we are just using a lite amount of alcohol to ensure the best application.

Step 4 – Some paint may come with a primer, apply a spot of primer with the butt end of a Q-tip. Touch the area within the chip, just touching the edges of the surrounding paint. Let the primer dry for at least a half hour before going ahead with any painting.

Step 5 – Now its time to paint the chip. Put a small amount of paint over the primer coat (if primer was used). Always test the color on a piece of paper to make sure it matches. The test will also give you a feel for how much paint to load onto the applicator brush. Apply a second coat about one hour later. Let the paint cure for several days and rub it out again gently with polishing compound to feather the edges of the repair.

Step 6 – Watch Paint Dry. Just kidding, we know you have better things to do. But if you ARE thinking about painting the chips on your car, stop in at Pete’s Paint to get a can of your vehicle’s exact Custom Car Paint Colour Match.

We use a high quality touch up paint from PPG called Omi Car Repair Paint, The OMNI system offers performance and value for the cost conscious repair shop, with a complete range of refinish products from pre-treatments to topcoats. The system is capable of mixing topcoat qualities with a wide choice of primers and clears, creating a unique system for various operational and cost considerations. All designed to elevate the color matching accuracy, hiding power and performance of the Omni line.

OMNI – Exact Match Car Paint Touch Up.