Spinelli Toyota Pointe-Claire (Montreal Canada) New Car Paint Scratche

[Davrav]

Ron, I'm thinking that you won't have much comeback with the dealer - unless you can find other customers who have had similar issues. I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and get the body shop to correct the surface.

[Ron_L]

Ron, I'm thinking that you won't have much comeback with the dealer - unless you can find other customers who have had similar issues. I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and get the body shop to correct the surface.

Yup that's what I'm thinking as well, I think it is most probably a bad buff at the dealer that was well concealed (not sure how they did it) but due to the length of time (only noticed it 3 months later) I am out of luck. This dealership has been nothing but a nightmare so far (second issue already) and I've only had the car for 3 months lol. They made Toyota look really bad, one thing for sure I will NEVER deal with them again nor refer them to anyone. I am not sure if I'll even buy a Toyota, this was my first one and as I mentioned it was nothing but hell.

[DjRav]

If you believe the dealer covered up scratches in your car (which could/would happen to any brand), why would you deprive yourself of one the top manufactures of cars in the world?

"Nothing but hell" sounds a little strong. Your other issues must be far worse than scratched paint, which isn't the end of the world and is fixable.

Although your car wash is normally good, have you considered they may have had a fault with their machine or some dirt got in?

Have you checked with them if anyone else has had an issue?

Dave

[Ron_L]

They installed a remote started on my car without my consent and charged me 3 times the actual cost. After trying to fight it they offered me a discount (still more expensive then getting it done elsewhere). Hopefully these minor scratches can be fixes at a small cost and will not deteriorate the car (ie rust).

Good idea about the car wash, I'll go check it out.

[anchorman]

Well whatever has caused it I think most will polish out. You need to call a car detailer or get yourself a meguire's polishing machine kit.

Has the car been driven through a plastic draught curtain (long plastic strips)?

[Ron_L]

Well whatever has caused it I think most will polish out. You need to call a car detailer or get yourself a meguire's polishing machine kit.

Has the car been driven through a plastic draught curtain (long plastic strips)?

No the car wash has no contact whatsoever. I hate scratches, I always keep my cars as scratch free as possible but we all know from time to time a bump here and there causes some minor little scratch. This freaked the h*ll out of me when I saw all these scratches just appear on my car after the wash. I had no accidents, no one bumped my car (not even bumper to bumper), nothing fell on it, nothing scrapped it, I kept it in a private single indoor garage, these scratches just don't make any sense to me.

[CharlieFarlie]

Ron.... Sorry pal but I am really confused

At first I got the impression your car had not been washed since you got it.. In the post above you appear to be like quite a few of us on this forum in so much as hating scratches on your car... You say you are going to challenge the garage that has the car wash yet then say its touchless so they cant be at fault ??

I really cannot see a scenario where anyone no matter if they are fussy or not would not notice that amount of scratches and visible marks in several months of ownership and I DO stand by my previous comments that no product could hide that lot. Sorry that is just not possible..

But lets stop tail chasing and deal with the scratches and forget how they got there ??

Very nearly all the marks as I said above are a VERY easy fix. They will simply polish out with little effort needed but a certain amount of care is going to be necessary.

Polishing scratches on rounded outside edges requires patience and careful measuring as its easy to apply pressure to just a small area of the polishing pad when on outside edges which will result in heat build up and you can easily polish through the lacquer..

The paint on Japanese cars is VERY soft and this can be the reason light scratches like your ones are easy to pick up.

It also makes getting them back out again an absolute breeze...

The only problems I see are the marks in the very bottom picture. And some on I think picture 4. These appear a little deeper and only a physical examination would reveal all..

I am more than happy to talk polishes and pads I would use if you like ? There is nothing quite as satisfying as sorting it yourself if you are that way inclined ??

Have a read through this.....

http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=127259#entry1133029

Any questions just ask...

[Big Kev]

Absolutely concur with ALL above from Charlie (especially the how the dickens did it take you three months Ron to notice....lol....) but that is in the past. They all look eminently fixable......

Only bit of advice I can add is, if you are going to do it yourself, don't take a week's holiday and batter into it.....set yourself realistic targets of what you can achieve at any given session, because as you are fixing the scratches, you will also be going on to do the whole panel, so it is a long job. I have managed to heat light cutting polish into the Rav topcoat just because I was tired.

Good luck and there is plenty help and advice available hereon (write to Charlie....lol.)

Big Kev

[Paulus17]

My sister in law had some pretty bad scratches on the Rav she bought,not new though,but the dealer promised to sort em out for her,which they did when she went to collect and all was fine,until about six months into ownership when the scratches started to appear again,but the warranty as up and the dealer didn't want to know,so they had used summat to hide/fill the scratches for a six months??

Needless to say she hasn't been back there but now uses the dealership where we got our Rav from,who she said have been brilliant with her.She's still got the scratches though and just living with em but i wouldn't be happy if they was on there from new!!!

Edit:- Looks like some of my text is/was missing

[Ron_L]

I am not trying to go back and forth here, I am trying to figure out how on earth these scratches just miraculously appeared all in one shot. Yes for 3 months I did not see any of these and they are pretty easy to notice now after the car wash. The car wash might be the issue but if it was then how come there are no scratches on the mirrors on the rear spare tire (since these were the closest proximity to the car wash thing that moves around the car) and how come the hood has scratches almost all the way to the window part and that is the furthest proximity from the wash thing. Things just don't add up in order to speculate that it was the wash. The lines look like they were made by a rotary object all look very similar in terms of pattern. They are all on either curved edges or hard to reach locations for buffing. I've been analyzing this situation trying to figure out where or how this could have happened and the only thing I see is a dealer trying to conceal a bad buffing job. It could only be from some kind of spinning object based on the marks and I've never buffed nor rotated anything all around my car.

[CharlieFarlie]

I am not trying to go back and forth here, I am trying to figure out how on earth these scratches just miraculously appeared all in one shot. Yes for 3 months I did not see any of these and they are pretty easy to notice now after the car wash. The car wash might be the issue but if it was then how come there are no scratches on the mirrors on the rear spare tire (since these were the closest proximity to the car wash thing that moves around the car) and how come the hood has scratches almost all the way to the window part and that is the furthest proximity from the wash thing. Things just don't add up in order to speculate that it was the wash. The lines look like they were made by a rotary object all look very similar in terms of pattern. They are all on either curved edges or hard to reach locations for buffing. I've been analyzing this situation trying to figure out where or how this could have happened and the only thing I see is a dealer trying to conceal a bad buffing job. It could only be from some kind of spinning object based on the marks and I've never buffed nor rotated anything all around my car.

Ron with respect I thought we had covered that one ? But I will try again..

I have been machine polishing and detailing cars for many many years way before the term "Detailing" was imported from the States in fact......

I have looked very closely at the pictures again and again and they do NOT look like polishing machine inflicted damage....

They do look like typical car wash machine damage or as pointed out above from one of those plastic curtain type things but you tell us the car has only been washed once and despite your enthusiasm you have never spotted these marks before ?

If its a dealer inflicted thing then how on earth have they disguised it for so long ?? Why would a dealer machine polish a car anyway ? They do valet the cars but a full detail is not part of a pre delivery as the cars should never need this kind of work..

Whatever... We cannot or at least I cannot say how the damage was done.. We can advise on how to fix it and will do the best we/I can......

[abraxas]

I'm as far from a detailing expert as you can get, but none of those look like were inflicted by a rotary ...umm... anything. I have had the pleasure of Charlie's favourite garage (EH branch) inflicting one of their washes/polishes on my one at the handover time... and swirl-marks left by their rotary polisher are quite different. :) As it happens, they are still on the car 4 years later, hence - no expert :)

All the scratches in your pictures look linear to me. If, say, a bit of grit was to get into a polisher pad, it would leave either circular or helix-style marks as the polisher is moved along the body. I cannot see how you could possibly get almost a straight line that looks at least 2-3 inches long, unless your polishing pad is 8 foot in diameter. :)

If I had to guess, I'd also say that someone tried to scrape something off the car / squeegee...

OTOH, my car looked almost spotless when I got it and I definitely noticed nothing untoward. So there is some merit in looking into concealing waxes, but the scratches were definitely nowhere as deep as your ones and only visible in the direct sunlight. [ Luckily I chose to live in Scotland, so that's not much of a problem... :) ]

Hope you get it sorted!

[CharlieFarlie]

There are of course silicone based products and Auto Glym polish does a good job of concealment.. But these products have very limited capability and will was off even in the rain.. Looking at the pictures of the OPs car says to me that there is no product capable of concealing marks so obvious and in places like shown not even when freshly applied never mind some months later.

[Ron_L]

Someone on another forum pointed out that this could be due to winter debry such as salt/dirt that was thrown on the car from other cars while driving on the highway. That can somewhat explain why they only appeared now (only after I washed the car from the white dried out salt residue it had all over it). But then that means the car had a poor paint job quality since I've never seen such results before and I've been driving other cars in these conditions for many years now.

[Red Yaris 54]

Someone on another forum pointed out that this could be due to winter debry such as salt/dirt that was thrown on the car from other cars while driving on the highway. That can somewhat explain why they only appeared now (only after I washed the car from the white dried out salt residue it had all over it). But then that means the car had a poor paint job quality since I've never seen such results before and I've been driving other cars in these conditions for many years now.

Not necessarily Ron......the salt and road debris could be just a bit tougher on all cars this winter as I understand that the USA has had quite harsh weather this year.

[Ron_L]

Well no matter what, at this point its a matter of having this fixed, now i am not sure if its just worth waiting until end of winter to get it fixed since it might just happen again during winter.

[CharlieFarlie]

Someone on another forum pointed out that this could be due to winter debry such as salt/dirt that was thrown on the car from other cars while driving on the highway. That can somewhat explain why they only appeared now (only after I washed the car from the white dried out salt residue it had all over it). But then that means the car had a poor paint job quality since I've never seen such results before and I've been driving other cars in these conditions for many years now.

Ron as I understand it you are in Canada ? So winters are far more severe than here in the UK !

The usual worst damage likely in the UK from winter is Salt damage which we can rule out.. Flying stones can and do cause very annoying chips which is again something that an owner with a little practice can sort...

Mate I'm struggling to understand why leaving the polishing out of the marks would need leaving as once cured I cant see winter causing further ones to appear unless I am missing something with either car preparation (Winter) or some unknown element taken due to winter over there in Canada..

Could the sweeping of snow or ice off the car result in that damage ? Very possibly ....

We really don't get the weather that bad but I have seen damage inflicted by someone sweeping snow of a car and it was the broom............ Yes I did say broom they used to sweep the car...

Somehow I don't see this as being the cause reading your posts...

If it were me ? Well I couldn't live with it so would deal with it now..

Sensible thing though is to leave it till the weather improves and machine polish the whole car as that will be the best way to do the job with such widespread marring to deal with..

[Yelramp]

Could the sweeping of snow or ice off the car result in that damage ? Very possibly ....

We really don't get the weather that bad but I have seen damage inflicted by someone sweeping snow of a car and it was the broom............ Yes I did say broom they used to sweep the car...

Just a thought but if ice were to be swept from the car, could the ice itself (rather than the implement used) cause

marks like this as it's being moved across the paintwork?

[CharlieFarlie]

Could the sweeping of snow or ice off the car result in that damage ? Very possibly ....

We really don't get the weather that bad but I have seen damage inflicted by someone sweeping snow of a car and it was the broom............ Yes I did say broom they used to sweep the car...

Just a thought but if ice were to be swept from the car, could the ice itself (rather than the implement used) cause

marks like this as it's being moved across the paintwork?

Yes mate ice would no doubt about it....

[Ron_L]

I have a special brush I use in winter (its made to clean the snow from the car), that being said when I clean I only clean the windows, and the car is kept in an indoor garage so I did not have to clean it much this year. That brush was used on my previous car and I never saw any scratches from it. If this Rav4's paint is so fragile that a minor sweep with a brush can cause this amount of damage then something is wrong. I have never seen a winter brush cause this much damage like NEVER (or any damage at all) :) It has to be a joke if these scratches were made from that.

[CharlieFarlie]

If you only use your brush on the windows then that can also be ruled out !!

The paint on Japanese cars is typically soft.. But not so soft that is not up to standard !!

The benefit of soft paint is that polishing is easy and stone chips are smaller due to less surface tension meaning fewer and smaller stone chips ......

Ron I think finally we have to agree that finding the cause is not possible and is not going to help anyway ?? Sorry pal as much as I am willing to help and advise RE sorting the problem not the cause its getting a wee bit boring now ?

Genuinely. If I / we can help with advise on how to rectify the damage to your car then just ask.. We do our best to help on this forum.

[Ron_L]

Yes that I fully understood, I went this morning and checked again each line and some might have touch-up paint (they feel raised up rather then a scratch)...not sure though. I'll go see someone working at a local body-shop first to ask him what this could possibly be and based on his assumption I might or might not go to the dealer depending on what is involved here.

[Paulus17]

Are those darker marks scratches or rubber marks?

I'd say the markings are too consistent for winter debris from the road,definately look like squeegy marks??

Has a dog jumped up the car and scrtached it,their claws scratch/mark easily??

[CharlieFarlie]

Yes that I fully understood, I went this morning and checked again each line and some might have touch-up paint (they feel raised up rather then a scratch)...not sure though. I'll go see someone working at a local body-shop first to ask him what this could possibly be and based on his assumption I might or might not go to the dealer depending on what is involved here.

One or two of the marks look like they have been placed on the paints surface by something like for instance a rubber object ?

These will simply polish off with absolute ease... Your comment about them being raised confirms my thoughts on those marks..

The lighter of the what appear to be scratches will not be able felt by you hand.. They are clearly visible but if you cannot feel them then once again Absolutely easy to fix...

Lets try it this way

Picture one (Top)

Easy fix.. Careful though and deal with this by hand with a medium cut polish

Picture 2

On mark looks a little deeper and colour change appears so it could be through the lacquer..

Again try a medium cut compound which will at least reduce it and may just eliminate.. You have nothing to loose as if you polish through trying to rectify its paint . If not no worries

Picture 3 AND 4

This is the part where it looks like residue rather than scratches ..

Either way an easy fix. Suggest light cut polish by machine or by hand....

Picture5

80 % certain this will polish out...

Medium cut by hand

Picture 6

95% Certain this will polish out

Medium cut .. Best by machine hand will do though.

Picture 7

Looks like residue but either way it will polish out

Medium cut by hand..

Picture 8

Not happy with what I see here..... Can you run your hand over these marks and update on what you can feel ? Sorry but the mark to the left of the picture seems very deep and will likely require paint. But have a closer look and say what you find ??

If someone with better computer skills can drop the pictures in order in between the above picture numbers it would help ??

[ianfish]

The only time i have seen marks like that on car bodywork is when a hose has been dragged over a vehicle, usually when it is being washed. It may be a possibility?