Newbie question:

How can you tell how deep a scratch is?

I scratched my brand new Accord this morning. That completely ruined my day. The mark that was left on my rear driver-side door is a long white line. Probably not a good idea to do it myself at the Autozone parking lot. Will the autobody or detailing shop be able to do something with Graphite Pearl? I heard this color was kinda tricky to work with and wanted to find out if anybody has had success or failure in bringing this color to the shop. Thanks.

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2006 Accord SE (AT)
Graphite Pearl

 

One of the easiest ways I've found to gauge the depth of a scratch is to VERY gently run your thumb or finger nail along the paint until it "drops" into the groove and you can kinda get a feel for the depth. If it gets noticebly stuck in there then it's probably pretty deep. If it just kinda skims over the top you may be able to buff it out.

 

What's up Snake? Sorry about your ride. It happened to me years ago with my Diamante. It was Pearl Black and what I did with mine was exactly as sirNasty explained in his post. You can also try to use 800-1000 grade sandpaper (no kidding) dumped with cold water. Really gently go along the scratch. Be very careful to not to go too deep. You just want to scrape the clear coats and the top paint layer of your doors, nothing else. When you dry it out with a shop tower, you will notice that paint is not shinny, that's normal. Then if the scratch is very tiny and almost hard to notice, you won. Just put some buffing paste and buff it up. I did it on my Diamante back then and it worked. I had to do some touch ups too because in some areas scratches were too deep to be buffed...If it doesn't help then you need seek a help of a body shop...Peace!

 

i been hearing about this product..

http://www.properautocare.com/mengetackit.html

i will probably buy it