A few days ago, my wife e-mailed me (I am in the Navy and out to sea right now) and told me that she and her girlfriend were trying to "be nice" and cut our lawns for when we get home (how sweet)...well, when they were trying to load the lawn mower into the back of the truck, they scratched up the tailgate pretty badly (I still haven't seen the damage) and I was wondering if anybody out there knew of a place/site to get a good scratch filler or touch up paint kit to try and fix this. My truck is mineral gray and normally I wouldn't even care, but the truck is 4 months old and has 3 thousand miles on it...it would be nice to not have any blemishes on a new 50000 dollar truck

 

Thanks for your service.

Autoparts stores sell touch-up paint. You could also try a dealer. This will seal the exposed metal but you'll see the blemish.

However, if you don't want to see the blemish, you'll need to have it professionally done which will include steps like wet sand, paint, wet sand, clear coat, wet sand, and then polish.

 

either have the tailgate repainted. or spray in bed liner.

 

If it's scratched thru the paint (even thru the clearcoat) the easist thing to do is drop the tailgate off and have it repainted. Should only cost a couple hundo, maybe less if you do the prep work and know someone at the shop. May be able to have it done when they are shooting the same color if you're not in a hurry for it.
Even if you have all the tools 9compressor, paint gun, etc, it'll still cost you over $100 for paint and materials to do it yourself.

 

thanks guys, I really appreciate the replies. like I said, I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know if she meant the scratch(s) were inside or out, HOPEFULLY INSIDE so that I can just take the factory bed liner out and spray in some Herculiner or something, which I was going to do anyway...those factory bedliners are just bad news...no problem and you're welcome for my service fellas...thanks for having me in the forums...Derek

 

Depending on how bad the scratches are I would touch it up and wet sand the spot. It can't hurt to try, if you don't like it take it to a body shop and have it painted. I used to work for a GM body shop and spent a lot of time with sandpaper and a buffer and you'd be suprised how much you can do. Take some touch up paint and the smallest thing you can use to fill the scratch. Don't use the brushes in the bottles of touch up paint unless its a LARGE scratch. You just want to get the paint onto the damaged area, not your good paint. Try a small detail brush or even a plastic toothpick. Make sure the area is clean and dry then apply the paint. After it drys take a small piece of wet 1500 grit and knock it down. Then use 2000 to smooth it out. It'll look like you've just ruined your tailgate until you buff it out - don't worry. Use a #1 cleaner wax and then step it up to a 3 and then a 7 until the spot is buffed to a shine. Hope this helps

-Steve

 

I don't know if it can really be explained any better than that! Thanks a bunch Steve...when I get home, I'll go ahead and assess the scratches and move forward from there...I'll keep ya'll posted...Derek

 

More than likely they scratched the edge/top of the tailgate. Like the other guys said try a spray in Bedliner or a plastic one. But another option would be the Factory spoiler for the tailgate or just a tailgate protector (40)





I know the spoiler is sort of a half ton thing. But an easy fix

 

spoilers look good on the silver model. Pretty cheap too on eBay.