Check the scratch in raking light before you book anything
Stand so the light rakes across the panel and look at what the mark does to it. A scuff that only dulls the reflection, with the colour unbroken underneath, lives in the clear coat and can almost always be polished out by machine with no paint involved. A line showing white or grey at its base has gone into the colour or the primer, and polishing will only thin the clear around it; the panel needs refinishing. Bare metal or grey plastic at the bottom means it has gone through everything and should not sit out a winter, because the edge will lift and on steel it will rust. Two quick checks settle most doubts: water wiped across a shallow mark hides it for a moment, while a deep one holds its line; and a fingernail drawn lightly across at right angles glides over clear-coat damage but catches on anything past it. A detailer’s polish that faded the mark and left a ghost tells the same story — the shallow part came out and the deep part stayed. Photograph it in daylight, straight on and from a low angle, and send those; that is enough for our estimator to say which of the three repairs applies.
How Yorkville cars get scratched
The pattern here is not gravel on the 401. It is a key drawn along a door on Scollard by someone who did not like where you parked. It is the column at the bottom of the Yorkville Village ramp, which has taken the paint off more rear quarters than any pothole. It is a delivery van’s mirror dragging along a car parked on Bloor between Bay and Avenue, a bicycle pedal against a door in the curb lane, a stroller frame in the Cumberland garage, a stone planter at the mouth of a permit laneway off Scollard. In winter, salt grit pushed up by the tires sandblasts the lower doors and the rocker behind the front wheel, and by March the clear has a haze that no wash removes. On a new car that came off the lot with nothing on it, the first one hurts the most, and it is often the one people least want to see fixed badly.
Why a scratch on a pearl is not a touch-up job
On a ten-year-old silver hatchback, a touch-up pen and a polish are a reasonable answer. On a three-stage pearl or a deep metallic, they are not, because the eye reads a colour change at the edge of a repair from across the street. A scratch through the colour on one of these gets the panel sanded, primed where it reached the substrate, based, given its mica coat, cleared, and blended into the adjacent panel so the transition has no line. A key line that runs door to door means both doors and a fender blend. Matte and satin cars are harder still: the clear cannot be polished at all, so even a clear-coat scuff means the panel is refinished. Aluminum panels take a different primer. Leased cars are worth doing properly, since a visible touch-up is charged at inspection as if nothing had been done. The refinish carries a lifetime warranty, and it is the same work whether you pay directly or claim under comprehensive.
- Clear-coat scuffs polished by machine, no paint
- Through-colour scratches refinished and blended
- Keyed doors on pearls done as full-panel refinishes
- Matte and satin finishes refinished, never polished
- Daylight photos first — the estimate is written before you drive up
Questions people ask
The car spent a night parked on Scollard and came back with a key line down both doors. Claim it, or just pay for the repaint?
Compare the repair with your deductible before deciding. A key line on a pearl means refinishing both doors and blending into the panels on either side, which is usually well past the deductible, and as vandalism it is a comprehensive claim that does not count as an at-fault loss. Report it to police online or at a station — not a Collision Reporting Centre — because the insurance company will ask for the report number.
The car has a ceramic coating. Does polishing or repainting ruin it?
On the panel being worked, yes, the coating comes off along with the defect and has to be reapplied after the paint has cured for about a month. Elsewhere on the car it is untouched. Tell us it is coated so the panel is prepped accordingly and you get the reapplication timing right.
Can a scratch be fixed the same day if I wait at Fairview Mall?
A clear-coat scuff that polishes out, usually yes. Anything that needs paint is a booked job of a couple of days once the colour is matched, because the panel has to be prepped, sprayed, baked and blended. The photos decide which it is before you drive up.