Several white scratch marks on car; best way to fix?

[Dankk]

The other day, when I was pulling out of the parking garage at my work, I had a pretty nasty run-in with one of the steel blockades.

It left some yellow paint scuffs on my car, which came off very easily with a wet washcloth. My next concern, however, is these white scratch marks that also appeared. I'm pretty confident that these are NOT simple scuffs, because I cannot wash them out. So I assume these are scratches.

The question is, how deep? I know there are several layers of material that consist of a car's outer shell, but unfortunately I'm not an autobody expert, so I'm not sure exactly what happened here. What layers were damaged to reveal this white color, but not the bare metal?

And I guess my ultimate question is, what's the simplest way to fix for someone who's not terribly familiar with this kind of stuff? I do have one of those little paint touch-up pens for small paint chips, but I'm pretty sure this goes beyond that.

If this is the kind of thing that I should just take to a professional, then you can say so. There are a couple of autobody shops nearby with good reviews. But I want to know if there's a more economical way to do it first.

For clarification: This is a 2015 Forte5, bright silver color. The damage is just above the wheel well near the back of the car.

 

[NutBucket]

You can probably polish out some of that but it looks like there's some paint missing along the door seam.

 

[NutBucket]

DP

 

[hans007]

You probably have some paint damage especially on the edge. But I bet most of that will polish out. Maybe even with just some rhbbung compound and scratch x.

 

[tcG]

Your paint consists of a primer, the color coat, and then a clear coat on top. That looks like mostly clear coat scratches, which can be polished out. The idea is to gently sand down the area until the scratches level out/disappear.

3M makes a really good, inexpensive kit for repairing clear coat scratches. I recently did a bit of research on this very subject as I had some similar issues - I would get one of those and then follow the directions. The end result will probably be substantial - if not complete - removal of those scratches.

Painting is much more complicated and involves a lot more labor/money. Try the 3M kit and see what happens.

 

[C1]

Looks like a classic type repair for BumperDoc ( http://www.bumperdoc.com/ ).

 

[Quiksilver]

Your paint consists of a primer, the color coat, and then a clear coat on top. That looks like mostly clear coat scratches, which can be polished out. The idea is to gently sand down the area until the scratches level out/disappear.

3M makes a really good, inexpensive kit for repairing clear coat scratches. I recently did a bit of research on this very subject as I had some similar issues - I would get one of those and then follow the directions. The end result will probably be substantial - if not complete - removal of those scratches.

Painting is much more complicated and involves a lot more labor/money. Try the 3M kit and see what happens.

This guy has the right idea. I think this video over here:

will explain the process to remove them well enough.

 

[mindless1]

You have several similar scratch lines. Get some car "polish" which is a wax with very mild abrasives in it, take a cotton swab and rub it only on one of those scratch lines, let it set for a few minutes then wipe it off to see the effect.

As someone already mentioned, at least the edge will probably need some touch-up paint and unfortunately silver metallic is harder to match than some colors, often ends up a shade darker than original if you don't do entire panels or carefully blend it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

white out?