Car body care tips

It's not very difficult to keep your vehicle looking good. With regular care even a very old car can look new. How old, do you think, is this vehicle in the upper left image? Looks nice, doesn't it?
This Mercedes-Benz is 15 years old, with almost 300,000 km (186,000 miles) behind! More than that, it has never been repainted - this is its original paint. Now look at the lower image, this three-year-old car is already corroded through. It's a big difference, isn't it? If you planning to keep your car longer, the car body needs as much care as the engine or transmission So, how to keep your car body in good shape? How to keep it shiny? Read below

Wax your car regularly. A car wax gives a natural shiny look to your car and helps protect the paint from fading. It takes only about half an hour to wax an entire car and the high-quality car wax stays on the car for three-four months. So far, I haven't seen a single product that stays for life time as you may have heard in some commercials - nothing lasts forever. In order to maintain a protective coat any product needs to be reapplied periodically. Read more here: How to wax a car.

Bird droppings are very acidic and abrasive. The best way to clean the bird droppings off is to first soak them with water (few drops of soap, if available, will also help) for a few minutes and then just spray them off. The stains left from bird droppings can be buffed off with the fine polishing compound and then covered with car wax. If birds target your car regularly it might be a good idea to keep a spray bottle with water in your car, so you can wash the bird droppings off before they cause stains.

The stone chips if not repaired in time will cause corrosion like in the first photo. That's why it's good idea to repair stone chips as soon as they appear. This one, near the headlight in the second photo is not corroded yet, so I'll try to repair it. The car is clean and dry and I have all I need: the matching spray paint ordered from a dealer and a sharp wooden stick (a toothpick will work as well). After shaking the spray paint very well for a few minutes, I spray very small amount into the cap. Now, I dip the end of the stick into the paint in the cap.

First, I'm trying to repair another stone chip in a less visible area to practice. Very carefully, I'm trying to barely fill up the chip without letting the paint to come out. It works. Now I'm doing the same with the chip near the headlight. Now it looks much better and it won't be corroded.

This mark on the door was made on the parking lot when someone opened the door a bit too wide. If you look very closely it's actually green paint residue over original clearcoat. The clearcoat itself seems to be damaged only slightly. I'll try to remove this mark. All I need for this is ultra-fine 1500-grit or 2000-grit waterproof sandpaper (3000 grit is even better - the higher number stands for the finest abrasive), a polishing compound containing mild abrasive (I used the Turtle Wax) and a car wax. Very carefully (I don't want to remove the clearcoat) I sand the marks with wet sandpaper (use only ultra-fine waterproof sandpaper) until all marks are gone. If you have never done it before, try on some small spot to see how it works first.

Now there is no mark, but the clearcoat has lost its shine; I will use polishing compound to make it shiny again. I put small amount of the polishing compound onto the damp sponge and rub well until the clearcoat becomes shiny again.

Last step, I wash out all the polishing compound and buff the area with the car wax. Now, all that's left from the paint mark is a barely visible dent.

Deep scratches like this one, on the edge of the door, can be repaired with a touch-up paint. If you look closely, this scratch goes all the way through the clear coat, base paint and the primer (the grey stuff) and you can see the bare metal in the middle. This scratch will get corroded if not repaired in time, so I'm going to repair it. First thing I need is a matching touch up paint.

To get the matching touch-up paint I called my local dealer's parts department, they told me where the color code is located on this car - it was on the manufacturer's label on the driver's door jamb. I got the code from there and ordered the touch-up paint. The color code could be located in different places on different cars, but your dealer's part department should be able to tell you where is it.

The touch-up paint in this case comes as a two-tipped pen with base color paint on one end and the clear coat on the other. You can check if it has the same paint color code to make sure.

The car is clean and dry. Before using the touch-up pen, as it' said in the directions on the pen I have to shake it well.

As this pen's tip is too thick for this scratch, I'm going to use a sharp toothpick instead. So I squeeze a small amount of the base color paint from the touch-up pen into a bottle cap.

Now I dip the sharp toothpick into the paint. I need to pick-up a very small drop of paint on a toothpick.

Now very accurately I'm trying to barely fill up the scratch without letting the paint to come out of the scratch.

It's not perfect, but it looks much better now and it won't get corroded. Later, when the paint dries up I will add the layer of the clear coat from the other end of the touch-up pen (Instructions are on the pen).

These minor scratches were made by the bushes. This car has no clear coat as it's non-metallic color. The paint is scratched only slightly with no deep damage. To repair this scratch I'm just going to polish the paint.

I put small amount of the polishing compound onto the damp sponge applicator and gently polish the scratched area with it. After a little while I wash the are off to see if the scratch is still visible. I don't want to remove too much paint with the polishing compound. If the scratch is still there I polish it a bit more. Try in a small area first, it's important not to overdo it.

Once the scratch is barely noticeable, I wash and dry the area and use a regular car wax to make it shiny.

Here is the result, unless you look very closely, the scratches are not visible anymore.