Detailing & Cleaning
Stone Chips and Light Scratches: What Actually Fixes Each
A fingernail test tells you which product applies — a touch-up pen for a chip caught before it rusts, a compound only for a scratch confined to the clear coat.
A stone chip and a light scratch get treated as the same minor cosmetic problem, and they need genuinely different products — using the wrong one does not fix the damage, and in the chip's case can actively make it worse.
The test that tells you which product you need
Run a fingernail gently across the damage. If it glides over smoothly, the damage is likely confined to the clear coat — a scratch-removal compound, a mild abrasive, has a genuine chance of buffing it out by hand. If the nail catches or snags on an edge, the damage has gone through the clear coat into the base colour or primer beneath, and no compound removes that regardless of effort — that needs actual paint.
Stone chips: the rust risk that matters more than the look
A touch-up pen prevents rust — but only if applied before rust has already started. A fresh chip with bare metal exposed is a race against corrosion; painting it promptly seals that exposed metal back off from moisture. Once rust has already taken hold under a chip, painting over it does not stop anything — it traps the corrosion under a fresh layer of paint, where it continues spreading invisibly rather than staying visible where you can keep an eye on it.
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Touch-up paint pen
Apply promptly on a fresh chip, before any rust starts — this stops the problem, it does not reverse it.
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Colour match is an approximation, not an invisible repair. Even a well-executed touch-up is usually visible on close inspection. Its real value is rust prevention on bare metal, not a factory-quality colour match — set that expectation before starting.
Build it up in thin layers. One thick application is more likely to run or sit unevenly than several thin coats applied with patience.
Light scratches: only if the fingernail test passes
Scratch-removal compound
Only for scratches that pass the fingernail test — a mild abrasive cannot fix damage that reaches base colour or primer.
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A scratch confined to the clear coat responds well to a compound worked in by hand or with a light machine polisher — it is genuinely removable damage, not just concealable. A scratch that has gone deeper needs the same treatment as a stone chip: paint, not polish.
The mistake to avoid
Treating either product as capable of more than it is — a compound on a scratch that has already gone through to primer, or delaying touch-up paint on a fresh chip until rust has already set in underneath. Both mistakes turn a small, fixable cosmetic issue into a larger one.
If the chip or scratch has already progressed to visible rust, removing and preventing surface rust is the next guide, and if the damage came from something adhesive-related rather than an impact, removing stickers and glue without scratching paint covers that specific cause instead.