Three handles long by three fingers wide is a pretty big area. It’s almost impossible to believe that when you get into it it will only be superficial. There is almost bound to be damage into the paint if another car scraped along yours. As for using touch up paint over such an area it will look awful whether by brush or by can.
Unless it’s a banger I would just bite the bullet and get a pro to do it. if it’s easy it won’t be too dear : if it’s expensive then that suggests beyond amateur repair anyway.

yes was quite big and ugly looking. Not sure how to post a before and after photo but the acetone literally wiped the paint away. So hopefully saved some cash. Only caveat is if somehow the chemical shows some ill effects overnight or something.

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback. So I just thought I'd give it a quick shot with nail polish remover (Acetone based) before getting more aggressive as per your suggestions.

I dabbed some on a microfibre cloth and VERY gently wiped over the paint transferred on with a bucket of soapy water near me.

The excess paint wiped off instantly (like magic) even with a feather touch. I quickly washed it and kept water on it for a while to reduce risk of residual effect of the acetone (or so logic dictates).

90 percent of the area was totally fine, rest with barely visible scratches, so I think I was lucky. May not be if tomorrow I see things have regressed :) but it seemed fine.

May polish with something more aggressive when I want to do the rest of the car for small surface scratches but for now it worked great. Something to dissolve the scuffed on paint was definitely needed and this was shockingly effective like one of those cleaning adverts.

Edited by pete2000 on 17/08/2023 at 12:46

I like crumpled aluminium foil as an abrasive, because

(a) You can conform it to any surface profile

(b) it has an anti-corrosive effect on steel

(c) It has no grit particles (There will be small aluminium particles detached, but I THINK these are less likely to embed, and less likely to be damaging, than, say those in Scotchbrite, which are alleged to have wrecked a lot of newly rebuilt engines).

(d) It can be used wet or dry, and can be combined with abrasives such as toothpaste, valve grinding paste, or., I suppose, Brasso

(They don't, AFAIK, make Aluminium-O. Maybe too hard a sell in America)

(e) Its possible to "forage" it up from sweetie wrappers etc

Of course I'm not concerned with cosmetics (I mostly use it on exposed metal, most recently the end of my camshaft, in combination with silicone grease) and I dont know how it compares with the other treatments mentioned in that context, (with some of which it might be combined) but if I was I'd test it.

Edited by edlithgow on 18/08/2023 at 03:12