My daughter's wedding approaches... Valentines' Day... and she wants to be driven in my 350SL.

Trouble is, the body has a number of tiny stonechips around the door edges, and a couple of minor touchups on the body - by previous owners - that haven't quite worked.

My paintshop says to get the best finish they need to do the whole panel, otherwise a color mismatch will be obvious, especially with my metallic paint. It'll mean half the car... but I don't want that expense right now - I've got plenty others :-)

I've looked through all the posts here on touchups, and it seems that metallic paint is a real problem.

Any trade secrets someone can pass along to help me get my paint looking good?

Ken Silver http://www.kensilver.com
1971 Euro 350SL 118,000 miles
Met. green, black int.
Ex-230E, ex-280E.

Here's what I would try:
1) Go to your MB dealer and get genuine MB touchup paint
2) Go to Autozone, Pep Boys, etc and get some 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper
3) Clean the area as well as possible making sure to remove all wax.
4) LIGHTLY wet sand the area to be painted.
5) Fill in the chips with the touchup paint using a toothpick as a brush for the very small nicks. Let it dry at least 24 hours.
6) Wet sand the touchup areas.
7) Repeat #5 & 6 above.
8) Polish with Meguiar's #9 Swirl remover.
9) Follow with #7 Show Car Glaze
10) Finish with #26 Hi-Tech wax

I recently used this process to repair some serious scratches on the trunk of my wife's '95 E420 after some vandals pried off the star with a screwdriver. The key is to paint only the areas that are nicked but build up the new paint above the old paint and then sand it back to smooth. It is tough to match old and new paint color but, if it's a very small area you might be able to get away with it.

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Bill Wood - Webmaster
MercedesShop.com, LLC

Thanks Bill. My concern has been that a touchup wouldn't work for metallic paint with clearcoat, but when the alternative is a complete respray I guess it's worth a go.

Ken Silver
http://www.kensilver.com
1971 Euro 350SL 118,000 miles
Met. green, black int.
Ex-230E, ex-280E.

Metallics are worse than the regular stuff but if you use only enough metallic colored paint to cover the spot then build up with MB clearcoat (on said toothpick) it should blend a bit better than just putting on straight color/metallic. Other than that there isn't much to add to what Bill already said.

Hope this helps...Lee