How to Maintain your Car's Paint Job

As hard as you may try to avoid it, you might notice that your car occasionally picks up scratches. So how do you maintain your car's paint job? Here are a few things you can do to protect your car from scratches or at the very least minimize the impact scratches have on your vehicle's appearance.

Keep your car clean. Take your vehicle to the car wash regularly or wash it yourself. Bird droppings, bugs and dirt have a way of damaging your vehicle's exterior. Even chemicals found in rain water can damage a paint job. If you decide to wash the car yourself, choose a soap that is designed for vehicles. Other basic soaps can strip the wax. Also use cloths designed for washing vehicles. Find a shady place to wash your vehicle and make sure the surface is cool.

If you find a lot of scratches while washing your car, one thing you can use is detailing clay. Rub the clay on the car's surface to fill in scratches. You can also polish the car to remove scratches. This will also make your vehicle shine like new. Giving your car a good wax provides more protection for your paint job.

Keep your car parked in the garage or in a shaded area. Keeping your car parked in the shade protects your vehicle from sun damage. There are still other hazards that can cause damage to your vehicle's paint job such as salt, tar, dust, mud, gravel and sun. Your vehicle may begin to show signs of wear and tear. Your vehicle may also accumulate scratches from rock salt and this could cause rust and paint damage.

Touch up scratches. To maintain your car's paint job touch up the damaged areas as soon as they occur. You can handle small jobs yourself or take your vehicle to a body shop. For scratches and chips you'll touch up yourself, get paint that is factory-matched from a quality supplier. It is important that you use paint that matches your car's color. You can find the right color by matching the code, which you can find based on your vehicle's make, model and year. Be sure to purchase the right amount of paint to handle the job.

After you've gotten the paint to match up the touch up area, remove the wax with a prep solvent. Then sand the area. Apply the base paint and then allow the paint to dry and cure. Place your vehicle in a garage or somewhere else it can be protected by the elements such as rain and sun. About a day later, you can apply a clear coat over the touched up area.

If you keep a can of your vehicle's base color and a can of clear coat, you'll be able to quickly fix small scratches and chips as you notice them. If you don't have any base paint available, consider using nail polish until you can get the right paint. Nail polish will last about a month and provide temporary protection from further chipping.