Vandalism would normally be covered by comprehensive coverage, and won't affect your premiums; you'll just have to pay a deductible. If you tried to do it yourself, you'd never get the paint to match quite right, so you're better off taking it to an auto body shop to have it professionally repaired.
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Yes, I had this happen to me last year. Insurance covered it under comprehensive, no noticeable change to my insurance rate.
Depends, how much do you care, and how good does your car still look?
If you drive a pristine car that you plan on selling eventually: get it done at a bodyshop.
If you drive an older car or plan to keep it until it dies, and dont care about the looks too much: chrisfix has some good videos on working with a paint pen
If you drive a 20 year old car in the rust belt: lol
It's somewhere in between. A 2012 ford mustang. Some minor scratches on the driver's side that i bought it with. The passenger side was perfect. I care a good amount but I'm not made of money. I'm definitely considering some DIY rn
Definitely repair. If you have comprehensive coverage, then double definitely!
My deductible is $500 though and that feels like a lot to spend on a scratch.
Basically any bodywork job involving painting panels is going to cost at least $800. And if it's multiple body panels it will be more.
If you're in the the US, file a police report. If for anything documentation (and local crime statistics). I'm sure there won't be any real investigation, but it does help identify patterns.
Also, when/if you choose to file an insurance claim, you'll have a police report number. Which may or may not help grease the wheels of the claim.
In the European countries that I am familiar with, a police report is mandatory for an insurance claim, and a formality.
acab
My local pd lets you submit police reports yourself online. I've done maybe 10 or so in the past for work. No cops required lol.
I wouldnt bother with ChrisFix when it is about paintwork, after i saw his videos on bodywork i lost all trust in his skills concerning that. AmmoNYC (irrc) has an old video featuring a Mercedes g-class where he shows different ways to do it, from "i just dont want it to rust" to "only the best is good enough".
I'll be honest, i wouldn't know better. I was just watching his deep scratch video and it seems like something i could do and I'd be happy with results similar to his.
If when you run a fingernail over it, if your nail catches in the scratch, the scratch is very likely too deep to fix with paint correction(like buffing/polishing).
A proper fix will require prep, painting and blending, which you shouldn't try to do yourself. You could buy a touch up stick that matches your paint to cover the scratch. It won't look perfect and won't last forever without clear coat on top, but it will prevent rust.
Before you decide how you'll deal with this, you can bring it to a body shop for an estimate, most shops will do that for free. Most shops can give you an estimate from photos emailed or submitted to their websites.
If you're just worried about rust I'd say do it yourself it's not that hard
How deep is the scratch?
He said down to the metal.
Oh yeah, sorry missed that.
In that case, as Gellis12 said, professional paint job is your only option (to match the original paint).
You can make it a little bit less visible, but a lot of those "quick, easy and DIY" solutions will actually make it look worse.
Deep. To the primer mostly but i see metal at the end of it for about an inch. It's long too, maybe around 24 inches long
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