I tried to repair a small paint blemish on the door jamb of my brand new car and foolishly thought that I could remove it with Meguiar’s ScartchX 2.0 and Ultimate Compound. I did succeed to an extent before I screwed up and burned through the clear and base coats by rubbing that area too many times with my hand. The damage was no bigger than the size of a finger nail. Fortunately, the damage occurred on the outer strip (about .5 inch wide) of the door jamb.

I attempted to touch up the area with the factory supplied touch up paint but ended up wiping it off, which resulted in an even larger damaged spot, because I wasn’t happy with the touch up paint repair. I ended up speaking with a body shop, who kindly agreed to respray only the tiny run/strip on the door jamb to preserve as much original paint on the car as possible.

The repair turned out to be pretty good; the previously damaged area is mostly gone and mostly not visible. However, if you look very closely a few tiny imperfections such as thin lines/ridges and micro imprints of the repaired area can now be seen on the new paint under strong sunlight and LED light.

I understand that it’s not easy to spot repair an an extreme small area (.5 in . 10 in). Are the pictures consistent with what the new paint should look like? Short of respraying the entire quarter panel, is it possible to further improve the repair?

Thank you all for your help!

looks good considering. i can't tell about the cloudy spot. that's a somewhat difficult repair to have come out perfect. the person doing it needs to know what he is doing and had experience in doing it. it looks a little shody to me there should be NO defects for a premium job. but i'm not sure what your agreement was with the shop. if i were you i wouldn't touch it and just try and forget it.
but then i have a very small scratch on the hood of my new Toyota Highlander and its bugging the heck out of me. no one will probably ever see it. i'm not going to do anything with it yet but its in my mind all the time. funny how things like this get to you.
Jay D.

Thank you for your response!

I didn’t set a perfect expectation since I know nothing about auto paint; and was in a panic having screwed up the paint. The only thing I asked the body shop to do was limit the repair area to the door jamb strip.

When I returned, the owner of the body shop explained that the little fine lines under the clear coat could be the new paint’s chemical reactions to the Meguiar’s Ultimate Compound that I had previously rubbed on the area. We initially decided not to further mess with it, as it would just enlarge the repaired area.

I then asked the body shop to polish the clear coat run/drip on the clear coat blend just a few inches away from the repaired spot despite the owner’s concern that the clear coat was really thin. As luck (or misfortune) would have it, the body shop polished that area and burned through the clear coat on the blended spot as well. The owner of the body shop was very accommodating and offered to repaint the two spots for free. He said the silver lining is that there’s should be sufficient amount of paint on the 1st damaged spot for him to paint over to remedy any thin lines or web so the finished job will look better than the first repair.

I was relieved to hear what the owner of the body shop said. However, I wonder if there will be another spot where there’s clear coat drip/run after the new repair. And if so, am I risking having the paint damaged further more by having that clear coat drip polished?

My goal is to repair that area without showing signs of repair and not having any exterior part of the car wet sanded or polished. Am I chasing after something that’s not reasonable?

Thanks again!

badsix wrote:looks good considering. i can't tell about the cloudy spot. that's a somewhat difficult repair to have come out perfect. the person doing it needs to know what he is doing and had experience in doing it. it looks a little shody to me there should be NO defects for a premium job. but i'm not sure what your agreement was with the shop. if i were you i wouldn't touch it and just try and forget it.
but then i have a very small scratch on the hood of my new Toyota Highlander and its bugging the heck out of me. no one will probably ever see it. i'm not going to do anything with it yet but its in my mind all the time. funny how things like this get to you.
Jay D.

I don't buy the reaction to the compound excuse. The areas should have been thoroughly cleaned and properly prepped prior to spraying the paint.

It looks to me like maybe they did try to clean it but didn't do a final wipe before shooting the color.

No doubt that it is one of the repairs that shops turn away because there is no way to make money on them.

Thank you! I appreciate your comments and feedback.

The owner of the shop indicated that he would respray both areas; he seemed to be confident that the new paint will adhere to these two spots very well and won’t have any issues with any imperfections.

Please see the attached picture, whereon I put my thumb next to the spot the shop initially repaired and my middle finger near the new paint damage caused when the shop tried to remove the clear coat run/strip. If possible, would you mind sharing what would be the best way to repair this area? Sand everything down between and including the two spots to the metal and repaint? Sand down just the two spots to the metal? Or just repaint over everything as suggested by the shop?

I am also worried about having to revisit the issue involving clear coat run/drip. Any thoughts?

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:I don't buy the reaction to the compound excuse. The areas should have been thoroughly cleaned and properly prepped prior to spraying the paint.

It looks to me like maybe they did try to clean it but didn't do a final wipe before shooting the color.

No doubt that it is one of the repairs that shops turn away because there is no way to make money on them.

I can't tell from the picture (i wish we had a side shot) but here's how i would fix it. i would sand with 800 then maybe finish with 1000. i would do it all from the bottom where it fits to the rocker area up just past the upper damage, and over to just the edge of the door opening. from the upper damage up to about 3" more i would red scotch brite lightly, then soft mask the door opening edge. then shoot all of it with Dupont 222 its an adhesion promotor up to just the upper edge of the scotch brite scuff. then the base blending it so it just covers the upper damage. now shoot the clear, wet coats up to the upper damaged area then bring the second coat up past that to just short of the end of the 222. let this dry for a day and buff the edge running your wheel away form the fresh coating, don't run the wheel into the edge of the clear. it should come out with out a noticeable line of any kind at the clear blend.
Jay D.

I really appreciate your help, Jay.

Let me attach a couple of side shots and please let me know if you need to look at more pictures.

With the base blending, are you saying that you would spray it from the bottom edge where it meets the rocker panel up to the 1st damages area? Or just the two damaged spots only?

When it comes to buffing, is it better for me to wait longer for the paint to completely dry or does it not make any differences?

Thanks again!

badsix wrote:I can't tell from the picture (i wish we had a side shot) but here's how i would fix it. i would sand with 800 then maybe finish with 1000. i would do it all from the bottom where it fits to the rocker area up just past the upper damage, and over to just the edge of the door opening. from the upper damage up to about 3" more i would red scotch brite lightly, then soft mask the door opening edge. then shoot all of it with Dupont 222 its an adhesion promotor up to just the upper edge of the scotch brite scuff. then the base blending it so it just covers the upper damage. now shoot the clear, wet coats up to the upper damaged area then bring the second coat up past that to just short of the end of the 222. let this dry for a day and buff the edge running your wheel away form the fresh coating, don't run the wheel into the edge of the clear. it should come out with out a noticeable line of any kind at the clear blend.
Jay D.