much to my dismay, i noticed that some wonderful fellow human being thought it would be a cool idea to key my car over the weekend. [>:] fortunately, the damage is only about three inches long: looks like the a-hole just walked by and took out a chunk above the front passenger wheel, below the hood. the scrape looks like it goes through to the primer, perhaps even deeper. i can't afford getting the side of my car repainted at the moment, so what's my best bet - should i take it to a shop to see if it might be cheaper than i expect to get it repaired, or should i just buy some touch up paint and try to ignore the substandard result?

UPDATE:
thanks so much guys for both your support and your words of advice! here's the news: i stopped by a reputable body repair shop that a friend recommended to me after work today. cost of repair...$313.40 all because some punkass thought he'd be funny. anyway, i don't think i'm gonna have them do the work at the moment; i'm not feelin the expense right now. so, i'm taking some of the advice given here and i'll try to repair it as best i can until i have it professionally done. perhaps someone can recommend a good hypnotherapist to help me forget the scratch is there after i "fix" it with touch up paint?

for whatever reason, my mac doesn't like to let me upload pics, so here are the links from photobucket - hopefully they work!

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...6/DSCF0485.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...6/DSCF0484.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...6/DSCF0483.jpg

 

take it to the shop, it should be very cheap

 

I lowered my comp deductible for that very reason. If I were you, I would try the touch up paint method and use a squeegee to level off the paint to the same height as the rest of it. Or, put some quality wax on it to protect it until you can afford paint.

 

Man that sucks.......big jerk!

 

get some quotes at a shop, if the quotes are too high, touch up paint. still noticable, but ALOT less noticable than a scratch.

some people are just effing savages [:@]

 

[sm=ttiwwp.gif]

get some pics so we can share the pain with you [&:]

 

i'll get some pics up later tonight. being that i need to work to afford all my mods, i can't take any shots at the moment

 

That just sucks, ink. No one would key another persons dog or kid. Our cars mean a lot to us and people can dick with us because of it. My first thought if I were you would be to protect from future rust. Get some water based cleaner like auto body shops use to clean between paint coats and clean the scratch real good. Then I would just daub some touch up paint in good enough to cover any exposed metal. This will not alter the cost of repair in any way so don't worry about costing yourself more in the long run.

I have found it hard to get good shops to take care of small problems like this. Much like my motorcycle painting, they can make much more per hour doing a big collision repair. I usually take my small auto stuff to a guy that paints motorcycles. They are ususally better prepared and more willing to do small jobs.

Good luck!

 

Ouch. Its sad how people have no respect for other people's property anymore. Hopefully a shop wont want to charge you too much to fix it

 

That pisses me off. Call the dealership and ask them who does their work for cars that get lot damaged. It happens all the time at our dealerships andmost have people who can do a great job, so good, you will never see the repair.