EERRRRGH!!!!!

I was parked at my friend's barbeque one night, and when I walked back to my Xterra parked a block away it had a nasty stratch on the passenger side going across BOTH doors and onto the rear fender, even going onto the fuel lid! It's really deep too, sometimes obviously getting to the primer. It is incredibly noticable and it practically ruined my weekend knowing some prick got away with vandalizing my property. Probably random too, being as I have no enemies.

Has anyone had any luck fixing scratches this deep? I know I can take it to a shop, but I imagine the only option for the deep scratches at this point is to repaint.

I know they sell pens with the clear coat as well as the paint color, but how will it look with a scratch that's 4-5 FEET long?

how much is your deductible??

Same thing just happened to me yesterday...but mine's not quite as long as yours. Mine is about 4 inches long on the driver's side fender...happened while I was at WalMart. It's all the way down to the metal...I can see the layers of paint. I have a paint pen and the progress is slow for now. I've just been applying one coat of paint per day. I've also been using a paper towel to get rid of the "excess" paint outside of the gash. In the bright sunlight, it looks like crap so far, but when it's in a shadow or a little bit dark out, I can't even tell the gash is there. I still have a couple more "coats" to put on before the clear goes on, but I'll let you know if I can get it to virtually "disappear".

I hate it when fucken jackasses either key cars or run shit into them! They piss me off so much. My shrockbars will fend off attacks from car doors though!

My deductible is $1,000.

I don't think there's much I can do now...it's simply too long of a scratch to cover up. And to be honest, I'd rather have a 4 foot white line than a 4 foot blotch of touch up paint.

...Sigh. Always figured my baby's first body panel scratch would be from me or offroading...not some asshole prick.

If it is straight you could try to hide it with a pin stripe.

It's a bit curvy.

Will that Scratch-X stuff help me any? In case it ends up being too expensive to fix, I might hold back for a while and just settle with an attempt at covering it. I offroad often so I'm not particulary anal-retentive about the looks, but it seriously pisses me off whenever I see it.

Scratch-X will only help with damage to the clear-coat(top) layer of paint. You have to build-up/replace the layers that were scratched into. Then sand and polish.
The alternative is a re-paint. But three panels could run $1,000 or more.

dave and xtoy - why does this kinda thing have to happen

Sorry to hear that. Jealous people suck.

You said some of the scratch is in the primer, but not all of it? I would try to wet-sand it and then polish the crap out of it. Maybe some of it will dissapear, but again that would only work if it is in the clearcoat.

Another option would be to keep an eye out for doors in a junkyard. You never know, maybe you could get lucky and find some dirt cheap.

My last idea is depending on where the scratch is, you may be able to have that section on both sides repainted. (ie if the scratch is on the rocker panel, you could have the entire bottom half of your truck sprayed. Or similarly, have the entire side of the truck sprayed. It may sound stupid, but you can only see one side at a time, and if the color is close enough no one will ever notice.

The downside to painting entire panels because of a scratch is that if you ever go to sell it, the buyer will never believe you did all that for a scratch...

Thats about all I can think of. Your options are limited at best, I dont think there is any way to actually paint just the damage and have it match the surrounding area. Gotta do it by sections.

It's not fair that out of all my (somewhat) crazy crap I've pulled in my Xterra, it's first cosmetic damage is due to some punk bitch.

So far out of the people I've shown it to, they've all agreed it's one of the worst keyings they've ever seen. I had a detail shop owner offer me a discount because he felt so bad for me.

No worries man, this can be fixed, or at least look very close to new. Take a look at this link, it's not just TV magic:

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/diy_kits/article/0,2019,DIY_13787_3083739,00.html

P.S. watch the video

Peace.

that is CRAZY i should use that to fix up mine on my x the body shop wants to kill my ass in buffing and painting and shit...i might get a buffer or have a friend help me do this to save some cash also ....

nice DIY to make anything possible...

LATER...
BOOM

Man, that really sucks

Many of the paintless dent removal places also specialize in scratch removal. Couldn't hurt to get a quote.

You could just use hypno therapy to brainwash yourself that it was trail damage

That happened to me when I had my 98 Frontier, I had State Farm full coverage insurance at the time and they fixed it for free.. might check out how far your insurance company would go for vandalism..

hope everything comes out for ya