jameson75

I'm so pissed at the savage who keyed my car last night while parked in a belmont shore, Long beach parking lot.

Its a 9 inch key scratch on my shiny silver colored E500. Its honestly the first thing I see when I look at my car.

I've done some research and made some calls, and would like to avoid re-painting of the entire door and color matching the adjacent panels, but it doesn't look good. Does anyone know or have experienced an alternative to this? I know some of these mobile guys can work wonders with airbrushing and spot repair/painting.

To top it off, I looked at the color code and there's a "C" which means I have that Nano paint technology. Does anyone know if this is repairable? And if its necessary if the door does need to be repainted to look original and match the car?

Those of you who have fixed keyed scratches at the MB dealer...any cost estimates?

Thanks in advanced for any input!!!

CharlyE500

How deep is it ? show us a picture, I got scrach once and used a fix paint product and it got fixed. My car is Black color and trust me ..... I was so pissed and almost kill someone..... i got it at my work parking lot.
If its too deep then nothing u can do .... only repaint the whole door.

TPAbnz

I am so sorry...but I'd stick with MB dealer's recomendation unless you know a good custom shop. Too bad castration is off the law books if the SOBs were caught.

MBZ16V

+1

starcarnut

Really sorry to hear this, so hard to have a nice car and some cretin does this. If you can catch your fingernail in it then it won't buff out. If it's not through the color you could possibly have a touch-up guy fill the cavity with a couple of layers of clearcoat then carefully buff it flush. He'll know what to do. Good luck.

dlav06

+2

hankdotcom

First let me say that im sorry to hear your car got keyed...never understood why someone would stoop that low. anywhoo my co worker just got some work dont on his silver s550 he had some paint scratches and repainted his front lower right bumper i will ask what his cost was and post as soon as i can

SZMB

I can feel your pain. My E500 was also keyed one month after I bought it. That day I had it washed, polished and waxed; parked in a supermarket parking lot, and after some shopping, the next thing I knew was that rear passenger door got keyed -- almost 2 feet in length. I was pretty pissed for a long time. It's been 2yrs now, I kind of got used to the look. There are always some low life scums out there who couldn't afford any nice car and become psychotic in vadalizing other's cars.

ruffrob

As a guy whose had those problems in the past.........+3

kenikola

Very sorry to hear your car got keyed!

This reminds me of my short trip to Germany to buy new rims for my E220T CDI. I parked the car in the street of a small german town overnight. The next day I got in the car to drive it to the dealership to pick up the new rims. As I drove down the street, I noticed the hood ornament-star was gone. Hmm, "oh well", I though, "easily replaced". Then I did a "walkaround" and found, not that my car was keyed, but the local vandals had actually shot my car four times with an air rifle.

Both driver side doors had been hit twice and had deep holes almost going through the steel.

I got the car fixed&painted at the MB dealership as they are the only ones who have the carbon clearcoat. I really can't tell the doors have been repainted, so hopefully this will work out just as well for you. It just sucks having to pay for for such repairs. My color is 189C (a very dark blue color).

gaazmon

Damn That's horrible, what ******* a**holes.

pinebaron

I had a self inflicted scratch 2.5" long and deep though not down to the metal when my garden hoe fell off the garage wall and the sharp end landed on the rear passenger door. It cost me $498 at MB to repaint entire door; I would have it no other way since I love my cars too much. I have since removed all sharp objects adjacent to the car in the garage. That's the door in my current and recent signature photo.

MJ50

ouch... sorry to hear that...
MB should integrate stun gun technology into doors, trunk and hood...

pinebaron

When I lived in another country, I built exactly that around my vehicle more than twenty years ago along with radar proximity detector, proximity alarms with 100% control using two way radio/audio communication from miles away. All this was to protect a highly sophisticated vehicle with very elaborate and expensive ham radio communication equipment. When an apparent culprit appeared within range of my vehicle, the proximity detector would sound an alarm only in my two way radio; I could then either choose to convey a warning message through my vehicle PA system (it was dreadfully loud) or set off a very loud vehicle alarm or activate stun mode (several thousand volts) between vehicle body structure and ground. In the eight years I lived there, I only had need to activate stun mode twice. I am pleased to say my vehicle never suffered a single scratch. It helps being an electronic/communications engineer and a radio ham. Its a shame I cannot use it here.

johnathan1

I was there last night in my C230! Ate dinner at Phuket Thai.

Sorry to hear about your paint.

K-A

That SUCKS!!!! F*****g as*h*les.

When I bought my car there was a scratch on the Passenger door. The Dealer offered to repaint it on their dime. I tried to convince myself to live with it as I was SO pissed at having to have anything but Factory Paint on the car, and knew that apparently only either the clearcoat or actual paint were able to retain the "Nano" paint tech (can't remember too well which one), which made it all the worse.

I ended up doing it as I couldn't get over the scratch, the Dealer outsourced it to the Body-Shop they use. It came out PERFECT, honestly immaculate. There is no way in any way at all that you'd be able to tell, not in any light, any angle, etc. They obviously had to color blend the closer areas of the closest panels too.

Only negative thing that came out of it were that the idiots oversprayed all over the car, which cost me swirls all over when I washed it (didn't know of the overspray), then cost me over $100 to get it polished and waxed to remove the swirls and overspray. It's all good now though

kslater00

My 07 C230 Black got keyed nov 08. never did find out who. It was keyed all the way around the car including the hood. Insurance covered under vandalism and the final pay out was 4200 to the mb collision center who had my car for a month and repainted the whole car. I feel your pain and I am sorta happy i never found out who did it because i would probably be in jail today.

Kenny Slater

jameson75

Oh yeah, I was at panama joe's. it happened in the parking lot behind it.

And yes everyone, my fingernail does get caught in the scratch when I run it perpendicular to the scratch

I'll keep everyone posted and put before and after pics. I'm having one of those mobile guys come out and look at it before I take it to the MB dealer paint and body shop. This guy works and ferrari's and exotics. So hopefully he'll be able to work some kind of airbrush/touch up magic.

Thanks for everyone's stories and input!!!

CharlyE500

I feel you !!!

Boulder GT3

My wife's SL550 got rear ended by a lady who was on a cel and jumped a light.

I'm a fanatic and ended up going through an authorized MBenz body shop. It's a certification that means a lot with some real standards behind it. I can't tell my wife's car was touched.

Find one of those body shops and do what they recommend.

Just try to let go of the whole bad experience. If you let it bother you too much the guys that did it are winning.