Depth matters more than who did it
Most people arrive at a scratch wanting to know who did it. We start with a different question: how far down did it go. Pull a fingernail across it. A mark the nail passes over without catching lives in the clear coat, and clear-coat marks are polished out with compound and a refining pad; the panel never sees paint. A mark the nail drops into has reached colour, and the repair is a real one: the scratch is sanded out, the spot primed if needed, colour sprayed to the code and carried across into the next panel so the eye cannot find a border. A mark with grey or silver showing at the bottom has reached primer or steel, and on those the priority is sealing the metal before winter, with colour second.
Bumper corners and textured trim are plastic, and plastic wants a flex additive and its own prep, so they are handled separately from the steel. A touch-up brush is not a repair for anything past the clear coat — it leaves a raised line that catches the light and does nothing to keep salt out. Whatever we refinish is covered by the lifetime warranty on paint.
Dock walls, ladder racks and the townhouse garage
Concord scratches come from work and from home in roughly equal measure. On the work side there is the dock: the yellow bumper and the block wall of a loading bay meet a van’s rear corner on the reverse, and the driver’s side of a pickup box gets dragged along a trailer fender in the yard. Ladder racks and loose conduit leave long lines down a roof and a cab. Overnight in an open yard on Highway 7, a keyed door or a scored hood shows up with no witness, which is vandalism and a matter for comprehensive coverage.
On the home side it is the townhouse garage. The rows off Dufferin and Centre have single garages with a door frame a few centimetres narrower than the mirrors on a modern crossover, and the same corner gets caught on the same turn each week until somebody books the repair. Street parking on those blocks adds the passing-mirror scrape, and the Dufferin plazas add the shopping-cart line along a rear door.
Why September is cheaper than March
Bare steel and salt find each other fast. Concord’s roads are brined ahead of every storm, and a metal-deep scratch on a rocker or a lower door is under a coat of salt slush by the second trip down Highway 7. Rust starts in days and spreads under the paint on both sides of the line, so a scratch that was an hour’s work in September has become a panel repair by the time the snow is gone.
Money-wise, a scrape from a dock wall or a garage frame is nearly always paid out of pocket; it sits under any deductible and there is nobody to claim against. Keying is different — it is vandalism, so comprehensive coverage applies with your usual deductible and nobody is assigned fault, and a police report helps the claim even when nobody will ever be caught. A sales car that lives on the 407 can be dropped late in the week and back for the first call of the next; say so when you book and the booth is planned around it.
- Clear-coat scuffs polished, no paint
- Colour-deep scratches refinished and carried into the next panel
- Metal-deep scratches sealed first, coloured second
- Two daylight photos at an angle are enough for a written number
Questions people ask
I caught the garage door frame with the mirror and the door. Does the whole side get painted?
No. A mirror housing is its own small part, refinished or swapped as needed. The door is only painted if the frame cut through to colour, and when it is, the new paint is carried into the panel next to it so the repair has no visible border. The estimate names the panels; it is rarely more than two.
The conduit on our ladder rack has rubbed a line down the cab roof. Polish or paint?
Almost always paint. A one-time scuff sits in the clear coat and polishes out, but a rack line is the same rub repeated over months, and it cuts a channel through the clear into the colour along its whole length. The roof is refinished with the colour faded toward the pillars so there is no border, and it is worth padding the rack before the truck goes back to work so the line does not return. Send a photo taken down the length of the roof in daylight.
The scratch on the rocker shows metal but it is only a finger long. Is it urgent?
In winter, yes. A finger of bare steel on a rocker takes salt spray on every trip down Highway 7, and by April the rust has crept under the paint on both sides of the line. Sealed now it is a small job; left until spring it becomes a rocker repair.