New Taco, detailing questions

I posted this in the new members section, reposting here for more eyes.

Hey everyone. This seems like a cool place with lots of great info. Just got a '13 Tacoma Magnetic Gray TSS DCSB 4x4 this past Saturday. This is my first truck and first new vehicle I've bought. So, I've got a couple of questions.

1. Has anyone tried plastidip smoke on the grill surround? I know you can get a body color grill surround, but I was wondering if you could get close to magnetic gray with plastidip smoke.

2. I've had the thing for a fricken day and a half and scratched the leading edge of the rear drivers side door getting in or out. My pocket knife clip scraped it. Made me wanna puke when I noticed it. Looks like it might buff out. What product do you guys recommend? I want to repair the scratch and then put some 3M door edge guard on the leading edges of the rear doors and the respective spots behind the rear doors.

Got some black plastidip to do my badges. If that goes well, I'm gonna do the back bumper too, maybe with smoke. I was also thinking about painting the brake calipers red, but that might look kinda weird since it would only be on the front wheels. What do y'all think about red calipers?

 

For the scratch I'd get some McGuire's 105 and 205 polish. To use it without a machine means LOTS of elbow grease but it's doable. Those polishes are very high quality and highly effective.

Did you let the dealership detail it for you? If so you may want to look into a professional detailer who can polish out the swirls they installed for you. They can also take care of that scratch for you. I've done the same thing with my knives...


Here's what the truck looks like without swirls for reference. Just finished detailing my new truck yesterday, got it last tuesday.









pc screen shot

 

Take you fingernail and see if it grabs on the scratch. If it does your probably out of luck. More than likely though you won't feel it and it should fix fairly easily. Depending on how bad it is it could take 5 seconds with a swirl remover or it might take a full wet sand. If you post a good pic I could give you more detailed advice.

 

How much damage do you think dealerships actually do lol. Anything touching your paint will scratch it.

 

Took some Meguier's ScratchX to it yesterday, it did a great job of removing the scuffing but there is a scratch through the paint. I ordered some touch up paint along with the 3M edge guard stuff. Shouldn't be too hard to touch up since it is on an edge.

 

They do a LOT of damage if you're looking to keep your paint in good shape.

I've personally seen a brand new Ferrari need 40 hours of paint correction due to the dealership "detail."