Hi all. I bought a 2004 S60 a couple of weeks ago, and there are some minor blemishes to the paint work that I am questioning whether to address in any way. First, the passenger door has a couple of dings where people probably hit it with their car doors, and one of the dings is all the way through the paint to metal. There are also a couple of scratches, and one spot on the hood where my car salesman accidentally took a small chip out of when he fumbled my license plate and it fell endge down onto the hood (I still think they should have given me a discount after that). My friends say not to worry about any of these things, but I was wondering whether applying touch up paint would be beneficial in prevetning rust, etc., or if there was anything else I should do about it.

Thanks,

 

For scratches, I would start with a buff-n-wax. For chips in the paint, I would recommend applying a bit of color-matched touch up paint. If you are going to touch it up, keep the paint from building up too much by applying it in very thin coats. It might also help to mask off with tape any area you don't want paint. Sloppy touch-ups are just asunnerving as chips and scratches. As for door dings, many dealers and small shops can refer you to a paintless dent repairman who might charge about $50-$100 per dent or door. Do you have to go through all the trouble? Probably not. You could probably throw some wax on it a few times a year and call it good.

 

Thanks for the advice. I will try and keep up with washing/waxing better than I have with previous cars. My old standard was to wait for mother nature to clean my cars for me, but I always had rust proofed cars before and never had problems with rust. I do not know if my Volvo has been rust proofed or not