Just bought an 01 A4. I love the exterior color, santorin blue, but some jerk went and keyed the entire car minus front bumper and hood. But everything else: fenders, doors, gas tank door, trunk is all completely keyed and scratched. Wondering if there any good products that might help before I take it to the body shop and pay hundreds...

 

You will probably never be able to just "buff them out". Your paint system is a Clear-Coat system meaning that you have an underlying primer layer, a color layer and then a layer of clear over the top. The first thing you need to determine is how deep are the scratches. If they are only into the clear coat or just down into the color, you may be able to fix this with limited success. How deep are the scratches?

 

Yikes!

I know I'm a newbie to the site, and my guess is someone will see this as SPAM, but it's not meant to be that.

Okay, speaking from some experience here, up until yesterday I had a Saab 93 that was painted in what they called a Fuzion Blue, very cool color, but showed swirls and scratches super easily, almost as bad a black paint. When I purchased it, it has some pretty substantially scratches.

A local company, Ohio Auto Supply, makes a product called Clear Cut, I was able to either completely remove the scratch or greatly diminish their visibility with it. The PDP products were recommended to me by the Saab dealer that serviced my vehicle.

My brother-in-law, was a bit of a doubter of how good the product worked, a dog had clawed the driver side of his red f150, within about 45 minutes of using Clear Cut, a pretty aggressive clay bar and a spray body gloss the scratches were gone.

Good luck.

 

We're a little, but not MUCH brighter than that!

We believe in a fair amount of free speech, for ALL!!!

You can get away with an awful lot, around here, except active links... THEN, we look twice. Delete, and BAN, if needed

 

My first post - I'll offer a "Link-Free" reply LOL First, as stated, it really is going to depend how deep the defects are. But, suffice it to say that it would be pretty certain at least some of the scratch is going to be into the base coat. The only thing you can do at that point is respray.

Some correcting will minimize and make some of the defect less noticable. Would be a good idea to take the car to a reputable detailer and allow them to put a paint thickness meter on the car to first see how much paint is available to correct. But, chances are, a respray will be in order!! Sorry for your misfortune and good luck.

 

If you cannot repaint, you can touch up.
Don't think you can bring paint back to a showroom shine but you can get it to look better.

Start with some 1500/2000 wet/dry SP and XXX pattern the scratch (lightly). Hold the SP with the heel of the hand (not finger tips).
If the damage is limited to the clear, buff with medium compound then fine compound and wax and try not to over do the sanding and a small scratch is easier to live with than over sanding.
Note: If you don't know how to use an electric buffer, this would NOT be a good place to learn.
If you have damage that is into the paint, color match the scratch with a good fine bristle long hair brush and DO NOT allow more than an hour between applications.
This will take several hours, be patient. Allow this application of paint to dry for several days and re-sand 1500/2000 wet/dry the application until it is blended with the surface. Over sand a few inches past the scratched area and spray the area with several passes of clear. One pass at a time and allow no more than an hour between applications.. light passes of paint will dry quicker that a heavy pass. Let this dry for several days. Finally; 2000 wet/dry SP, compound/buff and wax.

Understand that you will never bring paint back paint to showroom condition and that this little exercise is time consuming. But, if you have an open afternoon, you can improve the looks of scratched paint and it will seal the scratch, which is positive.

good luck