How to fix a door that got scraped?

You can get a scratch removal kits (3M, Turtle Wax), touchup paint&clearcoat, set of high grit sandpaper and try to polish it if tight on money.
But I would seek a professional help.

 

Thanks for the link. It was very informative. Body work is not my forte. I'm more of a mechanical type of guy. I learned a lot from that video.

I ordered the 3M kit. It should be here next week. I looked around at various kits online, but for the price it seemed like this was a good deal.

To be clear, the scrapes are not paint transfer. My girlfriend rubbed a cement wall backing out of the garage. I realize it isn't going to buff out, I'm really just trying to get it to look better. It isn't down to metal, so I'm not worried about rust. It is just a cosmetic issue. I don't care that much, but I don't like it.

 

If you get it wet. That will give you idea what it will look like after you try and polish it. How much of it will come out.

 

A little saliva on the fingertip works wonders. If that doesn't work, seek professional attention. It is important to maintain the condition of the truck (and your house), because once you let things start to go, pride of ownership begins to suffer which can start a downhill trend.

Look at the truck from someone else's perspective. If the damage bothers you now, it will always bother you, so bite the bullet and treat your baby well. You won't regret it.

 

Well, buffing it out alone didn't work. It made it a bit better though. I think I'll get some touch up paint and give it another try.

Original pic from OP:


Picture from before buffing and after cleaning:


Post buffing:


There is one spot near the bottom that is through the paint.

 

Try this
Get some touch up paint to match
Get a clean lint free rag and put paint in the rag and smear it on the area and cover all the areas with no paint and let it dry. It doesn’t matter when the touch up paint dries on the good paint . Let it sit over night . The next day use a medium polish on the area and the dried up touch up paint will come off the areas that are good and stay on the scrapes
This should all but make the scratches disappear. Not perfect but with that color it should look good .

 

That's what she said.

 

what buffing, pad, and machine were you using? looks like not enough heat/force/pad friction to correctly move the paint around with the scratches.

i think it's possible to minimize some of it, but most of it is going to stick around unless it gets professionally fixed and re-sprayed, especially considering some of it is through the clear coat, and those few spots are beyond the clear and the paint. really depends on what you're ok with.

 

$25 3M Scratch Removal System, 39071, 1 Kit

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003NS5NK8 as suggested earlier in this thread. I think I can buff out some more of it on the bottom half. I focused mostly on the top half. I think I'm going to order

$32 ScratchesHappen Exact-Match Touch Up Paint Kit - Magnetic Gray Metallic (1G3) for Toyota - Preferred (Paint + Clear Coat + Primer)

touch up paint / CC for the marks that remain after giving it a second go. I know it won't be perfect, and I don't care. I just want it to be difficult to notice for people that don't already know it's there.

 

she scraped concrete with it, that isnt plastic, or paint transfer. it is not going to come off and look good, and you will only be even more un-happy when you put touch up on it. if it bugs you, you have to bite the bullet and pay the piper. if you cant stomach the cost, call your insurance provider, and pay the deductible, and get it fixed correctly.

all the time, money, effort you are putting into this, could have easily been eliminated (and totally offset the cost of said deductible) by, feeling it with your nail, if you can feel it... it needs to be professionally repaired and refinished. it really is, as simple as that. (coming from 30 years in the collision industry) Ski

 

fair enough. i'm familiar with 3m's rubbing compound and scratch remover, not so familiar with their pads.

think of paint more like a stiff clay-- once heated up, it moves around slightly to be molded, but too much heat will boil the paint off the surface.

heating up the paint to move it around relies on the friction of compound used, the friction the pad, and the friction of person working the tool-- pushing harder into the panel will make the pad and compound do more work. varying any of these 3 things changes the effectiveness of the tools used.

you also need to be aware of how much compound to be using. you need to have small layer of compound on the pad, but it should never be coming off chalky-- it should have a 'wax just applied' look to it, but 'pencil eraser' shavings mean too excessive force, and too much compound.

to control compound use, i usually just dot along the the surface about 1/2" apart with the compound and then run the pad over it, starting on the first few dots to add material to the pad.


you need to use the rubbing compound and one side of the purple pad to 'push' the paint in 1 direction perpendicular into the scratch, then use the opposite rotation of the pad and follow back over that same spot to push the paint back to where it was, which will smooth the edges of the scratch and make it less visible(be warned, this is removing some of the clearcoat, so 1-3 passes is usually acceptable, but anymore than that, one risks cutting through the clearcoat and straight into the paint layer, which would require new clearcoat, and wetsanding techniques to correct). and this should be done with equal pressure in both directions, enough to push past the ridges in the pad so the entire pad is making contact, and the drill is working hard, but not so much the body panel is flexing inwards.

 

This!
I am not sure why so many are scared to use what they pay for. I get it, some have had other incidents and it's not worth it.
Maybe I am being silly and plan to far out, but I can't imagine looking at fairly new (to me) truck with this kind of damage for years to come.

 

we've all got dents and scratches.

 

I've put $30 and about 15 minutes of work into it. The touch up paint and clear coat is another $30 and not much time. Like I said, I don't care if it looks perfect or not. I just want it to look better. It already does with the first round of buffing.

 

Thanks for the tips!

 

I

I went the same route to repair missing paint on my brand new car. About $60 out of pocket and cannot see from a few feet.
Next time I'm going for a rattle can touch-up.
I used Turtle Wax kit and these kits do work. Just need patience

 

Be very careful!! The paint and clearcoat are very thin and very easy to get through and remove. I bought mine cheap because it had many scratches and a couple paint blemishes. I got many of them out, but some remain because trying to repair them resulted in getting through the clear coat to the paint underneath very easily. My biggest complaint is the paper thin finish on these.

 

I gave it a second round of buffing in order to clean up the bottom half a bit more. I think that's all I'm going to be able to buff out. The touch up kit is suppose to be delivered next week.

Original:


After the first round of buffing:


Now:

 

Something fell in my garage and hit the passenger front door on my truck. It was more than a PDR could remove so it went to a rather good body shop. Insurance paid, got it back, and low and behold you could still see some imperfections if you looked along the side from the front or rear. I wasn’t happy and didn’t want another crack at the body shop so I would have 2-3+ layers of paint and all that.
I found a set of two doors on eBay about 2 hours away. Drove to them, they swapped them over, and gave them my old doors. Think I paid maybe $900-1,000 for both doors. It was quick, easy, paint matches, and I have factory finish. And I don’t care about vin tags because no plans to sell the truck.

 

That's awesome, it's a great way to fix without all the hassle.