How to Properly Prepare Your Car for Touch-Up Paint

Your car’s exterior is what everyone sees when you are driving on the road. No matter the make or model, you always want your vehicle to look pristine. Unfortunately, scratches can happen easily; however, you don’t need to panic. A few scratches won’t ruin your car for good—here’s how to properly prepare your car for touch-up paint.

Identify the Damage

If you want to keep your car looking its best, you will want to inspect the exterior for any scratches. Several different sources can damage your vehicle, such as debris or other cars on the road. You should ideally check your car for any exterior damage routinely, so you can stop it from rusting. Once you have identified the damage, you can now move on to the next step.

Clean Your Vehicle

The next step you should take to prepare for repair is to clean your vehicle. Pay close attention to where the damage lies, so you can remove any dirt, dust, wax, and rust arrestor. Use water, a specialized soap, and a microfiber towel to ensure you don’t cause any more harm to the vehicle. We recommend you avoid going to a car wash. While it’s less work on your end, you don’t have a say in the products used. By using specialty care products, there will be less of a chance that your car suffers further damage.

Sand the Area

Furthermore, you want to make sure you smooth the damaged area—one can accomplish this via sanding. Use sandpaper with low grit to remove the rust damage. Once there is no more rust, you’ll want to move to high grit sandpaper to finish the process. This is because continuing to use the low grit paper may cause more scratches. Continue to use a higher grit paper until the area is completely smooth. From here, you can safely apply touch-up paint.

Get a Paint Repair Kit

After locating the damage and cleaning your vehicle, you should now obtain a paint repair kit. This is the easiest way to take care of exterior blemishes, as the kit comes with everything you need to fix the scratches, chips, and scuffs. Plus, the best part about using a paint repair kit is that you can purchase it based on your specific vehicle. For example, our Nissan touch-up paint comes with a 100% color match guarantee.

Upon ordering a kit from Scratch Wizard, choose the correct year, make, model, and color of your vehicle. This way, you can rest assured the paint in the kit will match your car perfectly.