Scratch Fixes?

mattchu09 · 05-07-2007, 06:02 PM

So I went off roading with my boys yesterday, one had a 4x4 stock wrangler and the other had a 4x4 dodge ram. Both of them tried to get through this HUGE mud puddle, and of course I was the only one who made it through no problem. I ending up having to pull both them through the mud and get them unstuck. Anyway, we were driving through some pretty tight trails to get back to the area where we were mudding and i got a lot of scratches down the side of my truck from tree branches and other stuff. Anything yall recommend to help buff them out. I think I have heard about something from turtle wax that does a good job, but any recommendations would be awesome. Thanks.

titanmike · 05-07-2007, 06:14 PM

If your gonna do that with your truck your basically gonna have to live with the scratches. Some waxes and stuff will hide them but they show back up after a while.

timid1 · 05-07-2007, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by titanmike

If your gonna do that with your truck your basically gonna have to live with the scratches. Some waxes and stuff will hide them but they show back up after a while.

Waxes don't do any cover up. To get the scratches out, you're going to need to apply polish (there are different grades of polish depending on the deepness of the scratches), probably with the help of an orbital polisher (Porter Cable 7424 gets my recommendation).

Strong recommendation: take your quest for advice to Autopia (linkie: http://www.autopia.org/)

mattchu09 · 05-07-2007, 10:07 PM

thanks for the advice, i went to the auto store today and found a few turtle was products: scratch and swirl remover, as well as one with a crayon type thing which you apply before the solution, then buff out. I am going to try both of them and see if they work.

I really don't mind the scratches, its a truck and its supposed to get beat up, just would be nice to make them a little less obvious....

Big Al · 05-07-2007, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattchu09

thanks for the advice, i went to the auto store today and found a few turtle was products: scratch and swirl remover, as well as one with a crayon type thing which you apply before the solution, then buff out. I am going to try both of them and see if they work.

I really don't mind the scratches, its a truck and its supposed to get beat up, just would be nice to make them a little less obvious....

Let me know how it goes! I have some scratches near my hood that I freakin' did trying to wipe off some dried up bird sh*t. More like a teradachtyles sh*t! That thing covered a huge portion of my hood.

timid1 · 05-07-2007, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattchu09

thanks for the advice, i went to the auto store today and found a few turtle was products: scratch and swirl remover, as well as one with a crayon type thing which you apply before the solution, then buff out. I am going to try both of them and see if they work.

Hand polishing won't do as good a job as machine polishing; there's just NO comparison. I tried polishing my aluminum wheels by HAND and even after spending 2 hours on ONE WHEEL, it wasn't nearly as shiny as the other wheels that I just gave in and bought a Mother's Powerball for.

Really.... invest in a good random orbital polisher for the paint, and a good drill for the wheels (the Mother's Powerball attaches to the drill). Not only will it save you an ishload of time, it'll look A LOT better.

mattchu09 · 05-07-2007, 10:49 PM

how much does an orbital polisher run for? It might be nice to pick one up just for the fact that i can use it on some other cars as well.....

i am gonna try the hand polish method and see what happens, the stuff didn't cost much so if it doesn't work oh well

timid1 · 05-08-2007, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattchu09

how much does an orbital polisher run for? It might be nice to pick one up just for the fact that i can use it on some other cars as well.....

i am gonna try the hand polish method and see what happens, the stuff didn't cost much so if it doesn't work oh well

I've heard you can get the one I recommended (above) for anywhere between $110 and $150. There's one by Dewalt that runs about $200.

All in all, there's no way you're going to get the same quality job that a machine can do, doing it by hand. :-)

pharcyde_titan · 05-08-2007, 02:38 PM

Arizona Pinstripping...thats what we call it here.

they won't come out without cut and buff. Might even need color sanding and buffing.

Justintoxicated · 05-08-2007, 09:15 PM

I got alot of light scratches out with Scratch-X Worked pretty good from my offroading as well but the deeper ones are still there if you look close.

Oh well it was fun, I did pretty good avoiding them untill we hit this one section, then had to go back through it because of a wash out on the side of the mountain heh. Next time I'm bringing some cutters with me.

mattchu09 · 05-08-2007, 11:13 PM

yeah, i mean scratches are part of the game when it comes to off roading so i mean i cant complain about them too much. I went through a bottle of meguiars scratch X today and it did a fairly good job of removing some of the scratches, but not the deeper ones. I just bought a Porter Cable polisher and pads, as well as a some Sonus Scratch Remover which should do the trick....hell its a good investment anyway for my other cars too