How to fix road rash on your car
Chips, dents, scrapes and scratches are the bane of every car owner. Luckily, you can use at-home car touch up paints to remedy even the worst cases of car road rash with a little know-how and a small amount of spare time,
What is road rash?
Road rash is a collection of paint chips usually found on a car’s bonnet, front bumper and around the tires. These tiny scratches are created by stones, gravel and other debris in the road bouncing up and hitting the paintwork. Fix your road rash at home with our smart-chip® kits.
How to repair road rash on your car
You can turn the unsightly road rash on your car into a perfectly colour-matched repair in five simple steps:
Step 1: Enter your car registration for a perfect colour match
Your car’s colour has a handy alphanumeric code associated with it so you can perfectly match it when you need a touch up or respray. We use DVLA-assisted technology to match your car’s registration to the correct colour. Simply enter your car registration number into our homepage to colour match your car.
Step 2: Choose your product
Our smart-chip® paint pen is designed to make repairing small paint chips, like road rash, even easier. Select one of our smart-chip® kits and add it to your basket – the colour will already be matched.
Step 3: Clean and apply
First you’ll need to clean the area where the road rash is after you receive your smart-chip® kit. Put on the nitrile gloves provided in the kit for protection, then use the alcohol prep pads to thoroughly clean the road rash. Once the area is clean and dry, dab a small amount of paint on to the chips and gently smooth it across the area. Add more layers as needed once the paint dries completely.
Step 4: Blend for a professional finish
Once the applied paint layers have completely dried, take an alcohol prep pad and wrap it around the micro-foam block provided. Gently wipe the repaired area side to side to remove excess paint, making sure not to apply any downward pressure which could damage the repair. This step ensures a professional finish by seamlessly blending the original paintwork with the touched-up repairs.
Step 5: Polish for shine
Take the bottle of Cut and Polish and apply a small amount to the blue compound sponge. Gently polish the repaired area in a circular motion. Once finished, buff the area to a high shine with the microfibre cloth.
How to avoid road rash
Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid road rash occurring (short of keeping your car in a garage and never driving it). To aid with aerodynamics and increase mileage per gallon, modern cars are lower to the ground. A side effect of this is more of the car’s paintwork is closer to the road, which inevitably gets exposed to more paint chip causing stones.
If your car suffers from road rash or scrapes and dents, then you’re not alone. We commissioned YouGov to conduct a survey to find out the state of the nation’s car paint.
