My dad and I repaired a small dent on the passenger side fender on my 2005 mustang. When we wacked out the dent, a large flake of paint chipped off. My dad suggested using 400 grit wet sand paper on it, and then covering it with touch-up paint. That made things only worse. Now my fender has haze where it was sanded and it is splotchy from the touch up paint. The only good news is that the dent is mostly gone. What should I do to get my ride looking good again? Is there a way I could repair the damage I've done, or should I just take it to a body shop? I don't have much money, so anything under $300 is out of the question.

 

A. how big is the chip? like the size of an eraser or something like quarter size?
B. you should have gone with something much higher than 400, maybe like 1500.
you might be able to work your way up to like 2500 grit and then polish it out, but it sounds like you dont have much experience with wetsanding/polishing as it is.
your best bet would probably be to have the fender resprayed, without pictures i cant really say whether it can be sanded and polished out though.

 

+1 to how big is the dent?

Sounds like you made worse irreversible damage than you had before

 

Touch up is hardly ever the way to go.

 

You can touch up if you know what you are doing. My dad scraped the door on my Cadillac Seville, he touched it up and you can't even tell there was a scratch. I would say to take it to a pro, or sand it down with 1500-2500 grit paper, then use the spray can touch up paint, then buff it to a shine with rubbing compound.