Hood Scratch: Fix it myself or take to body shop?

Hey folks,
Last week I traded in my 2014 Tundra with 128,000 miles and walked out with a beautiful 2017 Tundra Limited. Not a scratch on it and only 23,000 miles. Grocery store parking lot day 5 of driving it and I come out to find a two inch scratch on my hood. So this obviously pisses me off especially since the truck has a beautiful metallic red paint job. Anybody on the forum try scratch repair on their own? If so, any recommendations would be appreciated. I am handy and do a lot of my own work on my vehicles but never attempted paint repair. I am on the fence whether I want to attempt repairing this myself or just letting a professional take care of it.

 

I have repaired white scratches with touch-up paint before and it was almost invisible. That gave me confidence to attempt silver on my Tacoma and a dark metallic gray on my wife's Honda van, and I can tell you that it was not even close to the same thing - even with the correct paint code. Metallic is just not easy to touch up. I would say take it somewhere to get painted by someone who knows what they are doing. We have a mobile guy here who comes to your home or work place and will do awesome work - he fixed some rock chips on my wife's car the other day and I could not even tell where they were.

 

Post a picture of the scratch so we can see how bad it is

 

Here is a photo. Very thin scratch about two inches long. Mostly clear coat but at the end penetrated down to the primer.

 

Do you have any polishing compounds? If so, I would wash, clay, compound, and polish that scratch with a DA polisher to start and see how it looks when finished. Most of that will probably come out or lighten significantly. Then whatever doesn't come out decide if you want to get a touch up pen or paint.

 

I do have a DA polisher, just need new pads for it. I have turtle wax compound too. I'm just fearful that because the scratch is on the hood if I cut too much clear coat off the hood will discolor with time from the sun (no garage). What do you think? I know it's a fine line between cutting enough and too much clear, especially with metallic finishes on vehicles.

 

I would try touch up paint , just shake the crap out of it to try and get the metallic through the paint . If it really doesn’t look good after that then take to someone else .

 

I’ve been detailing cars since high school and if it wasn’t on the hood I’d probably try some techniques if it were on the side or roof but since it’s to the primer I’d take it to a local body shop that you trust.

They can touch up with manufacture paint and buff out with the assurance if they mess up they will have the means and methods to repaint.

That’s my opinion, anyway good luck in whatever you decide

 

Yeah that's how I'm feeling about it. Of course whatever tool damaged my truck had to scratch the f'ing hood.

 

I would try myself first and see how much it comes out and then proceed from there. Good luck

 

If you pull your fingernail across it does it catch your nail? If so then you'll need some kind of paint repair or possibly a wet sanding.

You would really really have to try hard to burn thru the clear with a DA. I would try that first too, even wet sanding correctly doesn't go thru.

 

Keep the cats off your truck.