I had some tailgate scratches on my black Land Cruiser. My SO lowered the electric garage door while the tailgate was still up, extending beyond the garage door.

I tried Griot's #3 polish and pad first. It helped, but not enough. Then I tried #1 (most abrasive) and laid into it. A bit too much, I'm afraid. Now there's a patch about 4" round with primer showing through. What to do? I've seen waxes for different paint colors. Will those work? Any suggestions short of a repaint? Thanks in advance.

 

Time to get some professional touch up or live w/ the spot, not much else you can do when it goes that deep. I feel your pain!

 

Ditto that. No way around it.

 

Just shoot me. The buyer inspected the Cruiser last Sunday and mentioned the scratches. I assured him that "I'll take care of it, I have experience with a random orbital buffer", then showed him the PC with a flourish. Well, he arrives Saturday (after a four hour drive) to pick it up, and now this. I'll take it to a body shop tomorrow for an estimate and reduce the selling price by a like amount. I hope the buyer is OK with that, I need the cash for the X-Runner arriving in a few weeks. Thanks guys, I guess.

 

X-Runner?
Ooh nice! It really is a shame about those scratches. I'm sure the buyer will be cool about it though

 

UPDATE: I took it to my favorite body shop in town. They do show cars, hot rods and most of the classic Corvettes in the state. They've done pearl repaints for me on older Toyotas and use Sikkens methods.

Bad news: $300 for repainting just the top part of the tailgate + replacement gold kit.

Good news: I told the owner of my predicament and he suggested the color treatment I mentioned in the first post. I applied three coats and it was about 90% effective. Then I used it on the faded over fenders, roof rack and brush guards (former AZ rig). Wow! Like new again! Much more effective than Bumper Black on those surfaces.

It's called Turtle Wax Color Cure and comes in an assortment of colors for enamel (non-clear coat) finishes. It's a perfect match to Toyota 202 Black. Included is what they call a ChipStick for first filling in the scratches and chips, then the polish is applied over that. Let dry to a haze and buff lightly.

Very easy to use, effective, but for how long who knows? $8 at your local auto parts store. I'm still going to point it out to the buyer and send him along with the kit.

So, four lessons: 1) A Porter-Cable with an aggressive polish (not even a compound) may ruin an enamel finish with Mongo in charge, 2) Color Cure is highly recommended, and 3) Enamel finishes are far easier to restore and repair than clear coated finishes. Something to think about if you're shopping for an older Toyota, and 4) I violated my "under promise, over deliver" motto...that won't happen again anytime soon.

 

Whoa... that Turtle Wax lipstick stuff really works?
I thought I'd read elsewhere that it was worthless. Good to know!

 

I'll have a full report on just how well it works tomorrow afternoon as I got a few minor spots of my own!

 

TD, you're right, the ChipStick actually doesn't work very well. I had a hard time getting it into the deeper scratches. It made it into chips a little better.

The best method I came up with is to use the P-C with #3 Griots to level the surface, followed by Toyota touch up paint in the chips and deepest scratches, followed by #3 Griots buff again, followed by 3-4 coats of Color Cure into the moderate scratches. The deepest scratches won't come out without touch up paint, but the moderate scratches appearance is diminished by the Color Cure. My ringing endorsement is for the Color Cure, not the ChipStick.

Good luck, Brian. Wear gloves, this stuff does a number on your hands. Also, since it's a polish, I imagine a coat of wax on top will help. I'm doing that tomorrow morning using straight carnauba.

 

I used mine once and tossed the entire thing. But glad it worked for you BTR17.

 

Nothing wonderful. Nothing spectactular. Black wax. Whoopy doo! All it does is stain your hands. Chipstick is a dipstick.

I'm glad it helped you in your situation, but I'll stick with Griot's for sure!

Only thing it might benefit is not making those white spots where you got chips in your paint cause the wax is black. Some effort and the touch-up paint is a better fix IMO.

 

From what I'm hearing it's going to be a long time before the X-Runner's area available, regardless of when the '05 are released. You seem to have some inside handle on things. I'm dying to get on of these '05 X-Runners! What's you're take on the whole thing?

 

Me too! But X-Runner intro is delayed for at least a few months, it seems. It hasn't even been assigned a model number yet, not good. If you really want one, put a deposit down at your dealership. On average, each dealer will only get 2-3 for the entire MY. I'm switching my order to a D-Cab long bed 6M/T TRD 4X4.

 

oh that's interesting you picked the long bed.

 

Yeah, sight unseen. I'm thinking resale, so my edumucated guess is that the longer 6' box will be seen as more versatile and the TRD Sport Package #2 (Tow Package) will probably look "prettier" with color-keyed everything compared to the Off-Road Package. It's a 55 lb. weight penalty, not bad, so MPG shouldn't suffer much. I also like the idea of a full-time Torsen rear diff instead of the awkward sounding A-LSD or 4Lo only locker for this application. But that 141" wheelbase will be a handful!