Blend it Like Beckham - The Power of DIY Paint Repair

Unsightly scratch on your beloved car? You can fix it right from your own driveway with a little help from Automotive Touchup DIY Paint Repair products.

I’m the kind of guy who goes out of his way in a parking lot to find the Perfect Spot. You know, the one where my ride is the least at risk to take a shiner due to a wayward door flung into it carelessly. Imagine my horror when I discovered a massive gouge on my beloved Lexus SC430, a car that is worth infinitely more in sentimental value than Kelly Blue Book would have you believe.

Despite my OCD parking habits, I’ve had my fair share of scratches on my vehicles. For decades I’ve turned to various touch-up paint pens, all with disappointing results. Despite my avid Tamiya model-building hobby in my youth, I just never had the right touch. The glorious “after” picture where my nicks and scratches are erased eluded me time and time again.

I knew this damage was more than a pen or brush could handle. I had resigned myself to the reality that if I were going to get this fixed, it would have to be at the hands of a pro. And those professional hands would probably cost me more than my 15+-year-old JDM body kit panel, which is why I just resigned myself to living with it, until the good people at Automotive Touchup heard about my plight and intervened.

I thought they were sending me a can of spray paint. Boy, was I mistaken. Automotive Touchup offered me their full complement of tools to restore my little piece of tuner history back to its former glory. To do the job right, you need more than the base coat. You need sandpaper (5 different grits to be precise), masking film, primer, base coat, and gloss coat. They even sent their aerosol spray can trigger to make sure I was able to lay down even coats, despite myself.

I finally had a few hours this weekend to dedicate myself to the challenge. In one afternoon, I was able to get things white and bright again on my car. Is it perfect? No, of course not. It wasn’t perfect to begin with, and becoming a master painter takes years of practice and training.

That being said, I’m happy with the results, and I had a lot of fun in the process. At times I felt like I was painting a 1:1 scale Tamiya model. While I don’t ever want to walk up and see another Grand Canyon of Gouges on my car, if it happens, I’ll be prepared to get to blending.

Automotive Touchup provided its products at no charge for LACAR.com to try out.

For more information on their products, go to their website.