The four things people call "paint damage"
1. Paint transfer — we fix this
Someone else's paint sitting on top of your clear coat. Usually shows as a coloured smear — white, blue, red, black — along a panel edge, door, bumper or guard. Your paint is untouched underneath. Comes off completely, no respray.
2. Surface scuffing — usually fixable
Light marks in the very top of the clear coat, often alongside transfer from the same impact. Frequently improves substantially when the transfer is removed.
3. Deep scratches — panel shop
The mark has cut through the clear coat into the colour or primer. Your fingernail catches in it, and you may see a different colour or bare metal in the groove. Nothing we do will fix that, and anyone promising otherwise is guessing.
4. Dents and creases — panel shop
The metal has moved. Paint work won't fix geometry. You want a paintless dent removal specialist or a panel beater.
The fingernail test
This is the whole diagnostic and it takes two seconds. Run a fingernail lightly across the mark, perpendicular to it.
- Glides straight over — the damage sits on top of the clear coat. That's transfer, and it comes off.
- Catches or drops in — the damage is in the paint. That needs a panel shop.
Why the difference is worth hundreds of dollars
A panel respray in Perth runs roughly $400 to $800 per panel. Paint transfer removal is $120 and takes under half an hour. Plenty of people pay respray prices for a problem that was never in their paint to begin with — because from two metres away, transfer and a deep scratch look identical.
Photograph it and send it through. We'll tell you which one you've got, for free, and if it's a panel shop job we'll say so.