If you have a car, you know that getting dents and scratches are inevitable. You can be as careful with your car as you can be, but you can never know when you might drive around a tight corner, motorcyclists scratching your car as they drive through during traffic jams, freewheeling shopping carts, other cars ramming into your car and thousand other scenarios that might cause a dent or scratch on you car.
So if you are reading this article, your car might want to fix the dents and scratches on your car. Here are some DIYs fixes that can be done at home to get your car looking presentable, but truth be told, this is not workshop quality. If these scratches or dents are bad, then you don’t have a choice but to visit the workshop and get them done nicely. But for those small ones, these DIYs would surely do the job.
DIY fixes for Dents and Scratches
Scratches
- Sandpaper – If the scratch is just over the first or second layer of paint, all you need to get them off is a 3000-grit wet sandpaper and some water. First, clean the area so that there is no dirt around the area. Drip some water over the scratch and rub it with the sandpaper lightly in a circular motion. Do remember to put the sandpaper over a wooden block so that the force is evenly distributed. Continue doing it until the scratches are gone and apply a coat of polish over it to finish it off properly.
- Scratch Remover Cloth – A scratch remover cloth is basically an abrasive cloth with some micro-metal rubbing powder sprinkled over it. It works exactly like the sandpaper, but just less messy and this cloth is easier to deal with. All you need is some water and this cloth will do the work for you.
- Toothpaste – Every household would surely have a tube of toothpaste or more in their bathroom. All you need to remove that annoying paint scratches on your car is a pea-sized dab of toothpaste and a damp cloth. Rub the toothpaste over the scratch in a circular motion as you see the scratch disappear like magic. Tip: Tooth Whitening paste works best in this case as it’s most abrasive.
- Rubbing Compound – Mostly whenever your car rubs lightly with another car’s bumper, the paint from the other car sticks onto your car. Now, you might think that it’s a scratch but thankfully it is not. All you need to do is remove that layer and use a rubbing compound to cut through it. Clean the area, take a dab of paint correction rubbing compound and rub over the area in a circular motion using a cloth. In just a few minutes you will not even notice imperfection.
Dents
- Boiling Water – This is an old age technique that works till this very day on dented bumpers. You need two pots, one with boiling water, and the other with cold water. What you need to do is then pour the hot water over the dent to make the dented bumper malleable enough so that you can push it out from the inside. Next, pour the cold water over it to cool down the area.
- Hair Dryer – If you are afraid of burning yourself with the hot water, another similar alternative is using a hair dryer as the concept is pretty similar. Heat up the dented area enough so that you can pop out the dent.
- Plunger – You’ll need a plunger that’s smaller than the dent, and if the dent is pretty small, you can even use a suction cup from your in-car mobile phone holder. You need a little water on both the plunger or the suction cup and the car to help create a seal. Push it all the way down to get the air out and pull hard. The dent will pop right out!
If these DIYs to fix dents and scratches didn’t help in getting the job done, then the only other way to take it to a professional body shop and get it done up perfectly. But according to most people, this DIYs does the job of removing obvious dents and scratches pretty well. Another way is to sell off your current car for another car at Carsome! Check the website to know more.