My useless neighbour, who can't drive for toffee has reversed into my Copen. It was only a light tap, but has scratched the bumper & the front lip of the bonnet. The worst thing is the scratches on my shiney front grill. I've been able to T-Cut the scratches off the bonnet & bumper, but can't do anything to fix the grill. I've tried to take some pictures of the scratches. I was watching her trying to park it, making a meal of it. It was raining too. I thought, shall I go out & move mine back to help her more, no she'll be alright. Then she opened her car door into the path of an on-coming car, almost losing it. That flustered her. Then she just put it into reverse to get out of the waiting cars way. "She'll stop in a bit, she'll stop soon, stop now! Has she just hit my car?" I should've went out to confront her straight away. From my angle of view I wasn't 100% sure she'd hit mine. It was very close though. Afterwards I went out expecting the number plate to be cracked or something, but because the car was wet I couldn't see any damage. Checked it today, now it's dry & noticed all the scratches. I try to keep my car looking perfect, washing & waxing it regularly. I'm so angry, that grill cost me a lot to import in from Japan. I wonder if the grill could be repaired somewhere. Failing that I'll buy a new grill. I can't live with it like it is. The wife thinks I'm being a bit picky, but she dosen't understand!
Hi Adam, aaargh! Very sorry to hear! You could try to remove the scratches with some polish specially for removing scratches from plastic (some products at Amazon). Unfortunately results seem to differ and no guarantee can be given, also heard that toothpaste could do the job. With the extry shining surface on the grille for sure some difficult job. Definitely you should try it first on a spot on the back of the grille (assuming it has the same kind of surface there). Best of luck, Andreas
Thanks for the tip. I'm looking into getting some Meguiars Plast-X. Fingers crossed it improves things a bit.
Oh dear Adam, not a good start to the year indeed. If you remember I had some "plonker" in a white van and a towing hitch put a hole in my grill last year. I understand it has to be fixed, else it will remind you of the incident every day.... If you don't have any luck with the repair, I would recommend the grill Chromdesign.de as it is very sturdy - but maybe thats not the look you want. Rex.
That really stinks Adam, your car has had so much love and attention. I agree that it might be worth trying to use a mild rubbing compound on the scratches. It might "dull" the metal though so be prepared. Wives never seem to get it. I just had our bonnet repainted to lose all the annoying stone chips and mine said it was a waste of money. I know its easy to say, but I think I'd be asking the neighbour for a contribution towards a new grill if all efforts fail !! good luck
Sorry to hear about your copen Adam. We had the same last summer on the first day of our holiday:-(( We realy hated having a damaged car, I know just how you feel. Thankfully the other party paid dearly for it and its as good as new. Hope you get it fixed soon Adam. Regards, Sardine.
I attempted to polish out the scratches this weekend. It didn't work! There must be a black coating on top of the normal chrome coating. Giving the dark chrome effect. The scratches have cut through the black coating revealing the shiney chrome. The polishing was just opening the scratches up. So I stopped, didn't want to make it worse. I'm just going to leave it as is for now. It dosen't look so bad, only under a good look will the scratches become noticeable. Maybe one day (if I'm ever supper flush with spare cash......unlikely) I'll buy a new one. At the moment I have too many other things I want to buy for it.
