What kind of paint repairs are we able to do on our own?

We may associate the phrase “paint repair” only with a complete respray, which involves filling and sanding, but this isn’t always the case. Sometimes we may be able to fix even deep scratches in the paintwork ourselves although we may have no professional skills..

The basic paint job we can do on our car ourselves is polishing and waxing the paintwork. This is useful when we want the paintwork of our car to regain its original shine. We start by carefully cleaning the car body, using paint-cleaning agents and steering clear of products like dish-washing fluids etc. We then dry the paintwork and assess its condition.

If there are no scratches, the paint isn’t hazed and it looks good, we can start right away by putting on the wax (e.g. WAX by Profix), which will allow us to create a protective layer over the paintwork and give it the shine we expect. Surfaces protected in this manner will also be less susceptible to dirt and will allow our car to remain clean for longer – letting us save on frequent washing.

How to remove a scratch without a respray?.

If we discover slight scratches or hazing on the paintwork, we can use a rubbing compound to repair these. It’s always good to use a power polisher with a polishing sponge, but we can also do the polishing manually, using pieces of microfiber cloth, which will, however, take longer and require more effort.

Some deeper scratches in the paintwork are not that easy to remove though. If we are a bit more experienced, we can first remove the deep scratches using sandpaper (with a P2000 grit) on a hard block, wet sanding the surface of the paintwork until the scratch is gone, but making sure that we do not sand through to the very base. We then start polishing.

What about larger scratches?.

We can also fix the paintwork on our car if it suffers minor damage, sometimes referred to as parking damage, or it is slightly scraped. If the damage to the outer coat is too deep to be fixed by polishing, a respray will be necessary, and we can use spray-on primers and paints to do it ourselves.

This type of repair is much more time-consuming, but with minimum manual skills we’re bound to get it done. We start by cleaning the surface with silicone cleaners. We then use paper and tape to mask off the adjacent areas that we want to protect from damaging and dirtying while carrying out the repairs.

The painting materials we can use without professional equipment include: fillers to smooth out the surface and isolating and filling primers. Thanks to these materials, we’ll create the base for the paint. The only thing we have to do now is to put on the topcoat paint. We can order ready-made spray-on paint online, choosing the colour with the paint code found on our vehicle’s identification plate.

If the colour of our vehicle is non-metallic (i.e. the car is coated with paint which has no visual effects, e.g. it has no aluminium particles), we may directly use spray-on paint of the appropriate colour with glossy finish. If the vehicle is coated with colours with visual effects (e.g. metallic, pearl etc.), we will need two types of paint::

• base coat paint, providing the appropriate colour
• colourless paint, providing a protective layer and giving the surface a glossy finish.

If we have any doubts as to our skills at spraying on paint, we should first perform a test spray on a sheet of paper.

Paint is also where you can’t see it .

Paint jobs that we can do ourselves also include maintenance of the chassis – paint is also found there, even though we can’t see it every day.

Sometimes it’s necessary to drive over a service pit and inspect the chassis. We can then check if the factory protective coat has not been damaged. Maintenance should be carried out immediately upon detecting any alarming signs, in particular directly before winter, when our roads are generously salted by traffic services.

For maintenance purposes, we use car body protective agents, also available in the spray-on form. Black is the colour usually applied here, however, the protective agents can be painted any desired colour if necessary, too.

As can be seen, the range of repairs that we can do on our own is very extensive, and it depends on our skills, or sometimes even courage. Complex repairs to paintwork, where it’s necessary to reconstruct the entire protective layer of our vehicle’s body, require care and precision. If we don’t feel confident about our skills in this respect, leaving it to professionals is recommendable.