Someone keyed my car - best course of action?

rjmartin

Hey Everyone.

Shortly before Christmas some kind soul decided whilst I was at work to key the entire length of my car (I was parked legally on a public road, not blocking any drives etc) - I assume it was a disgruntled neighbour.

I reported it to the police and whilst they didn't do anything about it they did give me a crime reference number.

I enquired online at the time about claiming through my insurance however people told me it would affect my no claims discount and so with Christmas coming up I decided to leave it till the new year and attempt to sort it then.

In the new year I wasn't very well with my health and so the car took the back seat if you like and I only recently tried to touch the scratch up with a touch up pen - which didn't help at all and has potentially made it worse.

From calling several companies (chipsaway, autoglass etc) it appears I'm looking at £500+ to fix the damage as the scratch is over three panels - I never realised it would be this expensive.

I'm assuming I am now to late to claim on my car insurance if I did so wish to do that? As in the insurance would want to know why I've left it so long to make a claim (is there a time limit I'm assuming?)

Can anyone recommend any other suggestions on how I could potentially hide the damage?

Attached a few photos of the damage:



Many Thanks for your help,

Rob

[Deleted User]

To be honest I wouldn’t bother unless i wanted to sell the car imminently.
It could happen again, people are horrible!

wgl2014

If you are happy for a bit of DIY have a search on YouTube for how to fix.

In order to make it not so obvious there is a fair bit of prep needed including sanding, filling, priming and then spraying. Maybe £60 worth of materials and a day of your time....

If you would rather have someone else do the work maybe try a local independent body shop and ask what the options are, when we had some damage caused by an identified third party (who agreed to pay) the body shop gave two options 1. Perfect and expensive or 2. Sufficient and considerably cheaper.

martinthebandit

wgl2014 wrote: »

If you are happy for a bit of DIY have a search on YouTube for how to fix.

In order to make it not so obvious there is a fair bit of prep needed including sanding, filling, priming and then spraying. Maybe £60 worth of materials and a day of your time....

If you would rather have someone else do the work maybe try a local independent body shop and ask what the options are, when we had some damage caused by an identified third party (who agreed to pay) the body shop gave two options 1. Perfect and expensive or 2. Sufficient and considerably cheaper.

Or you could do the bodge fix, buy a wax crayon to match, crayon over the scratch then give it a good polish.

PasturesNew

I'd not bother, I couldn't see anything in the photos.

It probably wasn't a "disgruntled neighbour", but a passing loon, or mischievous yoofs shuffling past at 3am.

If you fix it .... what if it happens again. At least now it's tainted you'll be able to park and not worry in public car parks, indeed, once that first damage is done and dusted it frees you up of worrying about things happening.

I might dab at it with a bit of T cut and a microfibre cloth... maybe think about a touch up pen .... but, in the main, I'd not bother.

PDC

martinthebandit wrote: »

Or you could do the bodge fix, buy a wax crayon to match, crayon over the scratch then give it a good polish.

If it were me and I didn't want it fixed professionaly, this kind of tempory fix its what I'd do.

I used to have a black car which had worse damage than this when I bought it and used a Turtle wax colour polish that came with a chipstick, that would completely hide the scratches and would last the best part of a year before it needed re-applying.

This was what I used.

debtdebt

Get the side of the car polished. Cut, polish and then waxed. It'll look much better.

System

wgl2014 wrote: »

If you are happy for a bit of DIY have a search on YouTube for how to fix.

In order to make it not so obvious there is a fair bit of prep needed including sanding, filling, priming and then spraying. Maybe £60 worth of materials and a day of your time....

No, just no. It'll stick out like a sore thumb and look even worse than it does now and turn a £500 job into a £1000+ full side respray. Matching up metallic paint so it doesn't stick out isn't something that anyone can do, let alone someone who has never ever put paint to a car before even assuming you can get spray cans with a perfect colour match.

missile

Check your insurance. Repairs for vandalism does not affect my NCD.

Arklight

Chris Fix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYF46P7B2c

System

Arklight wrote: »

Chris Fix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYF46P7B2c

Next weekend....

"I followed the video and now my car looks even worse."

Chrisfix has a LOT of experience sanding and polishing cars. He knows how to do it without going through the clear coat and/or going through down to the primer.