Well, it was inevitable... sooner or later I had to run over something...

on the way into work today, driving a more-crowded than normal I-85, I switched lanes to pass a semi. There, lying between the lane I was in and the lane I was going to was a medium-sized muffler and section of exhaust pipe!!!

By the time I noticed it (I was behind the truck), it was too late to avoid and I could feel my passenger side tires running over the errant piece of metal.

First thought... damn, now I'm going to have a flat. Quickly checked my tire pressure monitor (really thankful to have those now) and kept an eye on all the way to work. No problems there... whew...

My next concern... body damage... I mean I rolled straight over this thing. Got to work, jumped out and checked my front end... not even a scratch... again.... whew...

Checked passenger side and found a nice long mark down the panel directly below the door (used to be called rocker panels... don't know what they are called now). Looked to be scuffed, not scratched. I'll check more closely later today

The point of this whole story is to ask two questions...

1. If is just badly scuffed, not scratched, what is the best thing to use to buff out the mark?

2. If it is scratched down to the paint, what would you do to fix it? The position of the mark is very low on the passenger side, not readily visible. I'm not sure how hard Brickyard would be to match and would hate to pay for touch up paint only to have the touch up paint be more noticeable than the narrow, but long scratch.

 

I'd first try a very fine polishing compound. If it really is minor, there's no sense in starting out with a more abrasive compound than necessary.

If buffing doesn't take it out, I would get an opinion from a body shop before deciding on the next course of action.

 

Fortunately the rocker panels can be unbolted and repainted without compromising the original factory finish on the rest of body.

Try 3M Finesse It, a mild polishing compound first.

Dean