touch up questions

I bought silver pine mica touch up paint from my dealer and it matched perfectly. I had a couple of scratches in my front bumper and I can't even tell where they were now.

 

I use the little bottle of paint from the dealer. Used with enough ScratchX my last touchup is almost invisible. I brushed on way too much paint resulting in a "scar" on the door. I rubbed ScratchX along the "scar" removing the excess paint. It probably would have been less work if I tried filling in the scratch with a drop of paint on a toothpick.

 

I would go the route that JimN did, get the paint from the dealer, just use a minute drop----like he said , maybe even using a tooth pick. You can always add more if you need to. Never use a spray can of paint on a car like that, if the color isn't exact- you're going to have a wide perimeter of paint that has dried very quickly and is there to stay.

 

Brush touching isn't that hard. My bonnet needs respraying again, I had it resprayed when I bought the car due to chips.

 

If there is any rust first sand it away to bare metal. Paint over rust will often continue to rust.

Liquid touchup paint from Toyota is the only way to go. Spray paint will never match.

Note that the hood and certain other parts are aluminum or plastic and cannot rust. Touching up in those places is purely cosmetic.

 

I've got a small chip on one of the front doors that's caused by flying construction debris. With no touching up, that chip has since discolored (orange-ish). Could that be rust? I've got the paint and would now like to touch up but fear sanding will create a bigger cosmetic disaster. The chip is about 1/8 inch in diameter. Any advice welcome. If it matters, color is tideland pearl.

 

Yeah, the door is steel, and that does sound like rust. I haven't tried to fix a chip on a Prius. On another car I once used a dental pick to scrape away a small rust spot and immediately coated it with a dab of paint. It held.

 

Thanks for confirming.

 

I bought a used 2006 Prius few weeks ago and it had a 1/8" chip on A-Pillar. I used rust removers Plus rust preventor solution from local hardware store. I used a small Q-tip with this solution and rubbed it several times until all rust is completely gone. I did this because I do not want to sand the paint as it is difficult to cover it with paint it again, esp because difference in paint thickness.

Advantage of using this solution is , it went little bit under the paint(may be 1 mm) and cleaned the rust pretty good.

Once I was sure all rust is removed,then I cleaned that area with water, let it dry, the cleaned with isopropyl alcohol(based on tip from body shop guy). Once everything was dry, I painted in 4 coats with atleast half-an-hour between the coats, also made sure I apply thin coats. This way new paint penetrated the old paint well. This brought the dealer paint to the same height as original paint( if its vertical surface it is tricky and you may need to do several thin coats to get uniform thickness).

I left it like that for day, then I cleaned and dried that area and used Maguires polish(I do not remember exact name) which they claim better than many polishing compounds. I had to run several passes with medium pressure to bring new paint to same level as original paint and make it smooth.

It took quite a while, and there is some difference in shade of white between the original color and the touchup paint. It is possible it is because the original paint is little faded. But the end result is pretty good, and unless until we carefully look for that we can not see that spot.

Though I filled several rock chips in couple of days, this is was big one, and it is only one with rust. So in total it took more time than other small chips, but it came very smooth.

BTW, I had little experience with this as I had similar scratch on my previous brand new vehicle. After seeing the rust in that spot few months later, I followed the above procedure( But did not polish as much as Prius) and I have not seen rust on that spot as long as I owned that( almost 5 years).

 

Glad to hear of your success and appreciate you sharing special regimen. Also relieved at the prospect of not having to sand. Some additional questions, because I want to follow as closely as possible to your secret recipe: *What brand of rust remover & rust preventer? *Okay to use generic isopropyl alcohol? *What did you use to apply paint, to assure thin coats? *Is the polish Meguiars ScratchX Scratch Remover?

 

It bottle says "THE MUST FOR RUST" by KRUD KUTTER. It is a rust cleaner and rust inhibitor.

There is another paint called POR 15, it comes in black and gray color, and known to be the best rust prevention paint. (Many body shops seems to use and only available online or body shop supply stores)
POR-15-POR-15 Inc.

You can get 4 ounces tin for around $9. But this paint is little thick so you need to careful while applying to not make it too thick. And this needs to be covered with dealer touchup paint as it is not UV resistant.

whichever way you choose, make sure you apply thin coats of touchup paint. Make sure it comes level with original paint.

Yes for clean up I used generic Isopropyl alcohol. But I made sure I am not pouring all over. Just used a q-tip and soaked the rusted area to clean up rust remover so that paint sticks well.

For polishing I used Meguiar Ultimate compound. It is like typical Mothers california cleaner wax.

It is possible there are better methods out there, but my attempt on my previous vehicle worked well, so just did same again.

If the area where you live is very rust prone, then you may want to try thin coat POR 15 gray color, let it dry completely 24 hours and use touchup paint later.

 

After looking into this a bit more: if there is only bare metal it should be primed before applying touch-up paint, otherwise the paint may not adhere (apparently I got lucky in my one experience).

 

Thanks chinna and richard for the extra details. Lots of steps, materials and precautions to follow. Kinda intimidating for this novice. For example, how can I tell if I've got bare metal situation? To date, my biggest DIY achievement was changing the engine and cabin air filters.

 

Of course you get experience when you do it, right!!? do not worry too much, just do it. Worst case scenario, you have to go the touch-up guys.

Also, I forgot to mention POR-15 is a primer, not a topcoat paint. it needs to be covered with paint esp if it is exposed to sunlight.

 

I appreciate the encouragement, chinna. In the end, I took the car to a trusted body shop and had my contact take a look. He declared the rust no cause for alarm, asked for my touch-up paint, and took care of the problem then and there, after first wiping the area with wax remover. No charge. He said, with the rust, the undercoat was performing as it should in protection of the car. He did not expect it to return following touch-up but should that occur I was welcome to bring the car back. In observing his technique, I noticed he used a light touch, taking care to stay within the slight pocket created by the chip. And, as you advised, he applied the paint in thin coats. With that experience, I feel less apprehension about taking care of the next chip on my own; hopefully that won't be any time soon.

 

Good to know you have taken care of it.

As far the technique,

" noticed he used a light touch, taking care to stay within the slight pocket created by the chip"

Yes, that is how we are supposed to do and I able to do it successfully and kept the paint within that pocket.

Ofcourse I took enough time between applications and took more time than the body shop guys.