We’ve all been there at some point; walking to your car only to find a huge scratch caused by some inattentive or malicious person, or perhaps even when you’re the one to blame, driving, for example, too close to an object like a bush. Regardless of who is to blame, it surely irritates the heck out of drivers who like to pamper their rides.
Not all scratches are the same, though, and while in many cases, you can easily get rid of them, some deeper and longer ones will ultimately lead to a repaint.
Professional detailer Larry Kosilla from AmmoNYC recently came across a Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG that had fallen victim to a low-life key scratcher in a parking lot. The scratch started from the front door and continued all the way to the rear panel of the 4×4.
“This is one of the worst key scratches I have ever seen,” Kosilla commented on YouTube. “This car needed to be repainted, but I thought I would give it a shot…nothing to lose. It covered 3 separate door panels with varying depth levels. 98% of the 9 feet was through the clear coat, paint, base, and into the substrate. EXTREMELY bad scratch.”
Due to the nature of the damage, for the best result, the car needed to be re-sprayed, but Kosilla gave it a try anyway.
“I want to be crystal clear: THIS CAR NEEDED TO BE REPAINTED FOR 90-100% satisfaction,” he wrote. “My techniques here, with the understanding of the customer, had the best-case final results of 70% to 75% “better or touched-up” appearance.”
You can see the work that went into minimizing the damage and the result in the video below.
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