Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit
Why every car owner needs this kit
The Turtle Wax Scratch Repair kit is the best in the business! Seriously it is that good. But it is one thing to claim that this scratch repair kit for your car is the best in the business, another thing entirely to go as far as to say that every car owner needs this kit.
Life is a jungle and any car owner knows this first hand. But you needn't venture out into this jungle for you to realize that the jungle is often your own home environment.
How many of us have not gone out into our own garage or driveway, and find that a family member of unsuspecting neighbor has not accidentally scratched our car!
The insults life can throw your way come in endless forms!
Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit:
Life's a jungle, act accordingly
As a professional detailer and a car nut, I have never really taken Turtle Wax products particularly serious. I don't think I ever recovered from the bad experience I had with their soupy white, rubbing compound I had used as a teenager on my own car long before I got into professional detailing.
But as a detailer I immediately saw the value in this comprehensive, all-in-one kit for removing car paint scratches.
What Turtle wax did was assemble the exact type of tools and products I use professionally to perform scratch removal on cars. Unlike traditional rubbing compounds or dedicated scratch removal polishes or compounds that are nothing more then a mildly aggressive abrasive cream, this kit takes things to a truly professional level.
Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit
Turtle Wax T-234KT Premium Grade Scratch Repair Kit
- Everything a professional would use, but dialed-down for use by any car owner
- 3 sanding discs with (4) different levels of sanding grit (2 of the discs have a single level of grit on both sides, while the 3rd disc is double-sided and has a separate grit on each side)
- Comes with a lubricating spray for use when using sanding discs
- Comes with clarifying compound to remove sanding marks (clarifying compound is simply a glorified name for rubbing compound)
- Also comes with clear coat touch-up pen for scratches too deep to safely remove with the sanding discs
Darren's Tips: This kit contains the exact type of tools I use professionally. Since I do a lot of scratch removal, I buy large sheets of sanding paper, and have my own dedicated compounds and polishes.
Before Scratch Removal
After Scratch Removal
Turtle Wax literally took all these types of tools/materials needed and put them into this very neatly packaged and organized kit so you as a car owner or hobbyist can produce the same level results as a professional.
If you were required to source all the items out at my level, which would require you to buy everything in sizes and amounts you would never need, it would cost you $50+ or more depending on what quality of materials you shopped for.
With this kit you have everything needed in a small, perfect-size kit to do these scratch repair at home.
Turtle wax Scratch Repair Kit:
Tips for success
After reading many of the reviews on Amazon regarding this kit, I know there are many people who simply do not understand the process of removing scratches from car paint.
Often I read Amazon reviews on other products and wonder how these people are able to tie their won shoes based on their comments! Rather disturbing....
So I will lay out some of my car paint scratch removal tips to help you not just get better results, but have some realistic expectations moving forward.
DIY Car Paint Scratch Repair
Before Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit
After Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit
The before and after pictures above represent a unique situation where a large area of scratches and abrasions were put into this car. I did not sand the entire area, but only sanded the deeper scratches of from the entire section of damage. Once the deeper scratches were sanded, then I polished the entire area to remove the sanding marks and the general abrasions.
Not All Scratches are Created Equal
This can mean something as basic as, "Not all scratches can be removed". Some car paint scratches are simply too deep to safely remove them without doing worse damage to your car.
Car scratches are never completely uniform in depth and/or width. Which means that scratches will come varying lengths and one end of the scratch may be deeper than the other end, just as the middle of the scratch may be deeper. You never know until you know.
Darren's Note: Do not let this discourage you from attempting. As is often the case for me as a professional, I can still diminish the overall appearance of the scratch significantly, even if I am unable to remove the entire scratch.
Sometimes simply accepting that you are only able to improve the appearance without complete removal of the scratch.
How Does Car Paint Scratch Removal Work
A big part of the problem when it comes to using the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit specifically, and removing scratches in general is people's limited understanding of how to remove scratches from car paint and how the process really works.
Here is a sample of an area that has been sanded using one of the sanding discs from the Turtle Wax kit. This is on the hood of a car with black paint. If you have never sanding your car paint with sand paper, it will be a very scary process, but it is the beginning step to a hopefully good ending. I was trying to remove a scratch about an inch long that can still be subtly seen in the middle of this sanded area if you look very closely. It runs the same direction as the overall scratch pattern.To simplify it for this moment, you remove a scratch in your car paint by scratching the area with scratches in the form of sand paper, or a compound that has abrasive particles in it.
The abrasives remove the material of the clear coat by scratching away actual clear coat material. In a perfect situation, you would scratch away at this area until the original scratch was completely gone. What you are really doing is not scratching away the scratch itself, but scratching away the material in which the original scratch resides in, until the scratch is no more.
As a rule, you will often start with an aggressive sand paper to do the heavy lifting of car paint scratch removal, then transition down with finer and finer sand paper until you can remove the ultra fine scratches with some form of compound that also has abrasives in it, then followed with a polish that has even finer forms of abrasives in it.
And the whole process would then ideally be followed up with an application of car wax to add additional shine and some protection.
The picture here illustrates a very typical scratch that runs very long horizontally across the lower half of the rear of this Infiniti. The paint scratch is subtle in the picture, and this is a typical scratch that has not gone through the clear coat.In essence you are sanding your way to perfection, or abrading your
way to perfection. This illustrates one of the cool things about the
Turtle Wax scratch repair kit in that it has 4 different levels of sanding
discs that allow you to fully finesse the moment. It also contains the Clarifying Compound to then polish away your sanding marks.
All this sanding and polishing must be contained within the thickness of the clear coat so you do not work through the clear coat layer.
Darren's Note: I realize this seems like many unknowns in which to work with. For this reason I recommend people start with the most aggressive sand disc and sand back and forth only 5-10 times with slight pressure (You want enough pressure so as to feel the abrasive particles "bite" into the paint), then work your way through all discs, and then finish using the clarifying compound.
You can always check your results as you are working by wiping area clean with water. Since you are working with the constraint of the clear coat thickness, you may still see the scratch present at some or all of the stages of sanding discs. This may simply mean you have not sanded enough to remove scratch entirely, or that the scratch is too deep for complete removal.
What If The Car Paint Scratch Is Too Deep To Remove
As noted above, not all scratches can be removed safely. Some are too deep and have gone through the clear coat. Using the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit using abrasives to remove clear coat material, as opposed to car touch-up paint that is designed to fill in the gap of the scratch itself. Touch-up paint would be called an "additive fix" since you are adding material, not removing material.
In keeping with the theme of this exact moment in using the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit, even if you can't remove the entire scratch, what you are able to do with this scratch repair kit is diminish the scratch in many cases by sanding off the "sharpness" of the scratch edges.
This will often prove effective at diminishing the scratch if you are unable, or don't feel safe removing entire scratch.
Darren's Tip: I accept that using sand paper (sanding discs in this moment) will seem very radical to many of you. Just remember, that you always remain in control. To remain in control, you need to ease into this slowly by following the directions of the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit.
You can always test the process out by using the least aggressive sanding disc and sanding lightly on an area of your car (regardless if there is a scratch there or not. I would pick an area that is easy to work on, but is also as inconspicuous as possible) as a test spot.
This will help you get over the initial fear factor most of you will likely have as you sand your car paint initially. This is very disturbing for many people.
Here I have used the discs to sand away two distinct scratches on the door of this black mustang. The scratches were not too deep and I was able to remove the scratch entirely. If you scrutinize this picture, you can see all that remains at this initial stage is the scratch "pattern" created by the sanding discs. The original, deeper scratch of each section has been removed. Now I would proceed to using the Clarifying Compound to remove these scratches and restore the paint to perfection. The blue painters tape is used to protect surrounding vulnerable areas during the repair process.The picture above shows what your paint will look like as you use the sanding discs to test, or to actually start sanding away at the clear coat with the goal of removing the scratch you are working on. Once again, this is the disturbing part of this process.
Once you have sanded the area to a point you consider safe, then you take a cloth (preferably a micro fiber cloth) and use the clarifying Compound to now remove the sanding marks introduced by the sanding discs.
Here is a shot of the same area where I performed the car paint scratch repair using the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit. It took much rubbing with the Clarifying Compound, but the results are impressive.I will tell you that based on how hard or soft your clear coat is (clear coats are all different) will determine how hard and long you will have to rub with the clarifying Compound. Just know that being required to rub very hard and long, and repeating this multiple times is very common. Just keep working at the sanded area with the Clarifying Compound until you have achieved desired results.
Understanding Car Clear Coat
It is important to understand the nature of clear coat on your car before you attempt to remove any car paint scratches. Most people lack basic understanding of the scratch removal process, how it works, and why understanding clear coat is important.
Clear Coat Failure: Black Car
Clear Coat Failure: Green Metallic
Since virtually every car has a very thin clear coat as the top layer, this is really the only layer in which to work. Clear coat at a simplistic level is car paint with no color to it. Clear coat serves as a protective layer to filter out UV rays from the sun, as well as adds a layer of gloss and depth to the underlying color or base coat of paint.
It is hard to imagine just how thin most clear coat is. To put this into context, the clear plastic sandwich bags you stuff your sandwich in, are thicker than most factory clear coats. This presents us with a problem as once you sand or polish through the clear coat in an effort to remove any car paint scratches, it will change the color or appearance of the color coat. It will also remove any actual UV protection in that area.
Darren's Note: The two samples of clear coat failure above is a very common problem. While the clear coat itself with regards to quality and thickness, is a massive determinant and you are not in control of this, you can do so much to prevent clear coat failure with your own car through proper washing, waxing, and even polishing your car paint on a regular and consistent basis.
How Can You Tell If Scratch Is Too Deep To Remove
You can't. I recommend people perform two tests to start with in determining the possible depth of any car paint scratch.
The finger nail test: drag your finger nail across the scratch to see if you can catch an edge with your nail. It doesn't take much of an edge to know that if your nail can feel an edge to the scratch, that the scratch has likely gone through the clear coat.
You should also do this test to the entire length of the scratch if the scratch is a very long scratch. This will help determine if some sections of the scratch are either too deep to fully remove, or which sections likely can be removed.
The Water Test: Spray some tap water onto the scratch itself and see if you can make the scratch "disappear" temporarily with just water. What you are doing is seeing if the water will fill up the scratch. If the water is able to make the scratch disappear entirely or mostly, then this represents a good chance you can remove the scratch completely.
Darren's Tips: If you have performed these two tests and decide that your scratch may be too deep for removal, just know you have the ability in most cases to still perform the steps of the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit to diminish the scratch significantly.
Since every situation and every scratch specifically is truly unique, results will vary for every scratch you work on. This holds true with even professionals like myself as there are only certain things we can control. This is where having realistic expectations is very helpful.
What Other Things Can This Car Paint Scratch Repair Kit Do
Glad you asked!
While you may have come in search of the best car paint scratch repair kit, the reality is that your car paint likely has other "problems", and this very kit can also be highly effective at resolving other common problems or mishaps of life.
What you may ask?
Paint Transfer: This is when something hits your car and leaves some residue on the surface of your cars paint. This is why it is called "transfer". Material from another object transfers unwanted material onto your car paint and leaves what I often refer to as a skid mark.
The Turtle Wax scratch repair kit has four (4) different grits of sanding discs. Just because it has four, does not mean you have to use all four. You may find that the least aggressive sanding disc is all that is needed to remove transfer, or other isolated paint problems.
Or you could go directly into the Clarifying Compound without using any of the sanding discs. This kit literally provides you with a mini-version of the same tools and products I use as a professional to deal with deeper isolated scratches and other types of paint problems.
Darren's Note: As a rule, transfer will not feel like a traditional car paint scratch in that it will have no edge to it when you slide your finger or nail across it. If it essentially feels as smooth as the paint itself, it might just likely be transfer of some kind. I would test just using the Clarifying Compound fist to see if you can remove the mark. It is completely safe for you to get very heavy handed when using the Clarifying Compound as you rub the unwanted mark in trying to remove it.
Clear Coat Pen:
This Turtle Wax scratch repair kit also comes with a clear coat touch-up pen. This touch-up paint pen is sold separately and only brings additional value to this kit. While there are many opinions when it comes to fixing car paint scratches, this pen is ideal for concealing paint scratches you don't want to put any effort into, or for the really deep scratches that are too deep to remove. Simply use this clear coat touch-up pen just like you would a traditional car paint touch-up pen.
You will be amazed at how effective this alone can be in disguising and concealing many of your car paint scratches.
The clear coat pen can be used independently in a few ways:
- It can be applied directly over any scratch without attempting to use any of the other items contained in the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit
- It can be used after you have followed the directions of the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit if you have determined that you have done all the sanding and polishing you feel comfortable doing, but the scratch still remains visible
Darren's Note: The clear coat touch-up pen is not a perfect fix. The only perfect fix will be if you are able to sand away enough clear coat and polish to perfection. The clear coat pen will do a lot to cover up and conceal many types of car paint scratches, but it is not going to magically fill in a scratch and become completely invisible.
You will still be able to see the clear coat laying on top of the scratch, but it will make the scratch less visible from normal viewing distances. And since most scratches are very thin in nature, it is basically impossible to only apply the clear coat into the exact constraints of the scratch. There will always be over-hang of clear coat onto the surrounding area based on your own application abilities.
Some of you will be better at this than others. Having a steady hand is helpful, but you don't have to overthink it since nobody in the world could finesse these moments to perfection. We are shooting for "looks a lot better", rather than perfection itself.
Does Every Car Owner Need The Turtle Wax Scratch repair Kit
In my opinion, YES!
Because of the many "tools" in this kit, the versatility is amazing. With sanding discs you can go "strong". With the clarifying Compound, you can go "soft". This means you have complete control based on the damaged area you are working, and comfort level of your skill set.
The added clear coat touch-up pen makes an already versatile kit, an even more versatile kit all contained in this tight and neat Turtle Wax scratch repair kit!
- Remove or diminish deeper, isolated scratches
- Use to remove transfer of all kinds
- Use just the Clarifying Compound for very superficial scratches around car (especially useful around and underneath door handles, trunk lids, and other areas that get a lot of use)
- Threshold plate/door jamb areas just inside car doors where shoes leave all kinds of scratches and skid marks
- Rear bumper area where scratches build-up from getting things in and out of rear end or trunk
- Front end where debris from road can leave miscellaneous damages of all kinds
Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit Summary
If you have made it this far into my comprehensive Turtle Wax scratch repair kit review, I can only hope that this has been both an engaging and enlightening moment for you!
Darren's Note: You may have a moment of confusion due to me referencing (4) grades of sanding disc grits but only see 3 sanding discs in the pictures of this page. This is because the Disc #1 is two sided and has the #2 grit on the backside of the disc #1.
I spend a lot of time organizing this information in a way that is intended to not just inform, but help you make better decisions moving forward.
Whether you have come to the conclusion that you need the Turtle Wax Scratch Repair kit or not, is irrelevant so long as you feel you have enough understanding as to your next move.
If you do decide to use the Turtle Wax scratch repair kit in any way, don't forget to apply some form of car wax for protection after you efforts!
I hope I have helped unpack this subject of car paint scratch removal and repair, as it is a subject filled with endless opinions, and endless bad information.
I wish you much success in your car detailing efforts!
Sincerely,
Darren Priest
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