For many car enthusiasts, a car is one of the most expensive things, and it’s not a matter of price. Often they take care of her as if they were a loved one, pamper her and worry about her condition.
It is clear that some kind of damage, even the most insignificant, for example a scratch, resonates with pain in the heart of the owner.
And such situations happen quite often. You go out into the yard, and there is a surprise in the form of a terrible stroke of a nail on the shiny surface of the hood.
At such moments, you think about nothing but how to find the insolent person who damaged the car. What should the owner of the car do, should he look for the culprit and how to do it? Let's figure it out.
Scratched the car - responsibility
The sanctions for this crime are various types of punishment. Their range is quite wide and is considered individually in each case in court. The degree of punishment can vary from a fine of forty thousand to a real term of imprisonment of up to 2 years. If the actions are not classified as causing significant harm to the injured person, then the culprit can only be brought to administrative responsibility. The fine in such a situation will be much less, from 300 to 500 rubles according to the existing norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses. In this case, liability for damage to property arises under Article 7.17 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
Liability under Article 167 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
What is the practical liability for such offenses?
Such offenses can end in different ways. Very often, the initiation of a criminal or administrative case in these situations is refused. Most often, for one simple reason: due to the fact that the person who committed the offense was under 16 years of age. From this point on, it is possible to initiate an administrative or criminal case under Article 167 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. She also has point two, there is responsibility from the age of 14.
The severity of punishment for this crime is qualified by this article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If this damage is significant damage, then the punishment ranges from a fine to imprisonment for a period of 2 years. Bringing the culprit under the Administrative Code (COAP) provides for a fine of 300 to 500 rubles.
How to prevent defects from occurring
A well-known saying goes: “Prevention is better than cure.” Based on this principle, instead of frequent restoration work, it is necessary to carefully operate the car and use protective agents to treat the body.
Standard precautions include:
- careful care of paintwork (do not rub dry with rough rags, do not treat the body with aggressive agents containing acetone and similar substances);
- careful driving (be careful when parking and driving near large obstacles);
- use of protective equipment (wax coating to protect against dust and moisture).
Compared to repainting a car, caring for it with protective products will cost much less, so you shouldn’t ignore minor scratches on the body. If you have doubts about the quality of the work, you should seek help from specialists.
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Evidence of harm
This means that very often the refusal to initiate a criminal case on this fact occurs due to the lack of corpus delicti. This case occurs if there is evidence of damage to the victim’s property in excess of 5,000 rubles. But at the same time, its significance for the victim, taking into account his property and financial situation, has not been proven. Very often there is no evidence base. That is, victims need to secure as much evidence as possible:
This may be recordings from video cameras of administrative buildings that are located nearby;
Recordings from the DVRs of neighboring cars that were standing nearby at that moment or were approaching at that moment;
You need to talk about this with your work colleagues if at that time the car was parked in the place where the victim works;
Talk to neighbors if this is a residential building where the victim lives;
You can also place an advertisement at the entrances of a residential building or administrative building. In order for eyewitnesses of this incident to respond and give testimony about what they saw;
Or add to the materials just these video recordings that were discussed earlier.
The procedure for removing deep scratches from a car body
It is natural for car owners to search for alternative ways to deal with paint damage. After all, painting a car body after every scratch and chip at a service station is an expensive and time-consuming process.
Of course, it will be much cheaper to do local painting work yourself in order to maintain the integrity of the paintwork yourself. But, in this case, the car owner will need skill and a set of special equipment.
Sandpaper
To remove scratches on a car body using the classical method, you will need a set of sandpaper:
- The damaged coating is rubbed over with coarse grain at the initial stage, after washing the car;
- Fine-grained is required for processing putty;
- Use 1200-grit sandpaper to sand the area before painting to ensure a smooth finish.
putty
To uniformly fill the treated area and bring it to the level of the paintwork, the following is required:
- Carefully apply automotive putty;
- Dry the surface and clean.
Primer and degreaser
After obtaining a uniform surface, it is made smooth. To do this, apply the following to the area treated with putty:
- Special primer matching the color of the car body;
- Degreaser for tight paint adhesion.
Paint of the required shade
The main step in removing a scratch is the selection of auto enamel. It must match the color of the paintwork on the body of the car being repaired.
The final result of the repair depends on the quality of the materials used and the professionalism of the performer.
They scratched the car and fled the place
Algorithm of actions if you find your car damaged. It is necessary to call the police, who must draw up a report. Further, depending on the amount of damage, the police must initiate a criminal case or refuse to initiate a criminal case. Then you will need to make an expert report, which will indicate the amount of damage and the estimated cost of repairs. If the total cost of damage is up to 50,000 rubles. it is necessary to apply to the magistrate’s court at the defendant’s place of residence. Please note that while the examinations are being carried out, it is not recommended to repair the car. But if necessary, you can take a photograph and submit it to the court.
Scratched the car in the yard, OSAGO
Let's look at the situation: if a car was scratched in the yard and disappeared, will OSAGO pay? Can insurance cover such losses?
These losses can only be covered by voluntary insurance. CASCO and OSAGO only insures the liability of third parties to the victim. But it does not apply to these legal relations. For more information on the topic of insurance of these types, you can see the materials in the “Insurance and Insurance Law” section of our website. And very often, when a criminal case is initiated, the persons guilty of committing this crime voluntarily compensate the injured person for damage. They also compensate for moral damages. And this is a mitigating circumstance when sentencing by the court.
If you didn’t scratch it with a nail, you can get insurance under MTPL
If the scratch on your car was not made by a nail, but it is clearly visible that the car was hit by another vehicle, then this case can be classified as a traffic accident. If there is damage to the car, it must be photographed. It is also better to take a photo of the scene of the incident. According to existing insurance legislation, you can draw up a European protocol. If the car has suffered more serious damage, we recommend calling a traffic police officer so that he can draw up a report. And of course, you need to try to find video cameras that could record the incident.
I would like to note that it will be much easier for a lawyer to work with such an incident if there is more evidence. We recommend that if you constantly park your car in the same place, buy a video camera that will monitor the condition of your car not only during the day, but also at night.
A statement to the police must be written referring to Article 167 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Next, the police are obliged to conduct an investigation and, based on its results, either initiate a criminal case or refuse to initiate a criminal case. We also note that CASCO insurance sometimes provides for compensation for damage from the unlawful actions of third parties. You need to make sure that this clause is present in your policy.
What is the right thing to do if you have a CASCO or MTPL policy?
If the car is slightly damaged, the punishment of the perpetrator is not as important as compensation for the damage. If your car is scratched in the yard, what to do under CASCO depends on the circumstances and specifics of the contract. The car owner should evaluate the nature of the defects. If it is clear that they appeared as a result of a collision with another car, you need to contact the traffic police.
In case of scratches specifically caused by an object, you should contact the local police officer. Protocols from both services will confirm that the car owner did not damage the vehicle himself.
Next, you need to submit an application to the insurance company along with a certificate from the traffic police or police. If the contract with her provides for compensation in such cases, after inspecting the vehicle, the owner will receive money. Or the car will be sent for repairs at the company’s expense.
If your car is scratched in the yard, what to do under compulsory motor liability insurance also depends on the circumstances. Damage caused by an object, but not someone else's car, is not considered an insured event. Here you need to contact the police, look for the culprit and demand payment for repairs from him.
If a defect occurs due to another car, you should call the traffic police and file an accident. If the culprit is found, you need to contact the insurer with a statement. If someone who has scratched a car escapes, the police must search for him for 3 months. Until this time, the victim will not be able to receive compensation under compulsory motor liability insurance. And after 3 months, the statute of limitations expires in the case of an accident with minor consequences.
Amendments to the law on compulsory motor liability insurance – compensation for damage
If we talk about compulsory car insurance, not long ago the President signed amendments to the law on compulsory motor liability insurance 2021 “On the introduction of material payments.” What are these amendments about? These amendments come into force at the end of April this year and prioritize repair work over monetary compensation. Unlike previous provisions of the law, monetary compensation still remains. But they seem to act in certain cases. This is, for example, when a vehicle is completely destroyed as an object and cannot be restored. That is, basically these are payments not in monetary terms, but rather the award of repair work.
How to polish a scratch?
Polishing a single scratch is somewhat different from polishing the entire body, although the principles and logic are the same. The most important thing is to determine who will polish: a professional master or you yourself. Polishing a scratch with someone else's hands. Proper polishing of a scratch is polishing by someone else's hands. By the hands of someone who will do this from morning to evening. Someone who has at hand at any given time everything necessary to do it “well”: various polishing machines, various polishing pastes, polishes and many other gadgets, the existence of which the average car owner did not even think about. Well, now I’ll tell you in more detail what you will need, when and for what.
Step-by-step instructions for polishing a regular scratch
1Cleaning and basic preparation
We clean the body of everything that can be cleaned without any polishing.
2Basic abrasive polishing
Polish the scratch with a fur disc and paste with a coarse abrasive. The most dangerous moment of polishing.
3Finishing and final polishing
We polish the body after the previous stage. We remove holograms and even out the shine.
4Control of holograms and application of polish
We check the result and protect the polished area with polish or carnauba wax.
We begin polishing scratches with preparation. Clean the area of the body you are going to polish from dirt and road dust. If you want to take your car to the car wash, you want to wipe it with a wet microfiber. Yes, it gets scratched, but you still need to polish it... Focus on an area 30-40 cm in diameter from the scratch in each direction. Use polishing clay to remove dirt and dust from the area. We told you how to do this and what it is earlier. In the place of the scratch, there may be someone else's paint on the body: from another car, a fence, or another place that was rubbed against. Don’t try to wipe off all someone else’s paint with clay. It's hard and long. Use white spirit or gasoline galoshes. Degrease the completely cleaned area of the body with a regular degreaser or anti-silicone. The preparations are complete. Based abrasive polishing of scratches. The important stage of abrasive polishing must be performed with a confident hand, being sober and inspired. It is this stage that removes a scratch from the body; the rest only correct the overall appearance and clean up traces of abrasive polishing. You will need a regular rotary polishing machine, which is often confused with a grinder. We put a fur polishing pad on the substrate, but, in all honesty, we have to admit that the cheapest orange polishing pad for 200 rubles is also suitable. We use Koch h8 or Koch h7 paste. It is silicone-free and does not scatter in all directions. If the polishing paste has a high silicone content, like Menzerna FG400 or 3 M 417 with a green cap, then each time after passing the disc you will have to degrease the polishing area in order to see and evaluate the result. When there is one scratch a month, it’s no big deal. That's when there are five to seven scratches a day - these wipes with degreaser make you mad. “The crucial stage of abrasive polishing must be carried out with a confident hand, being sober and inspired.” We set the machine at 2500-3000 rpm, put five points of polishing paste on the disk, lean the disk against the body, spread it over the area without turning it on... We silently pray to ourselves and profit start button on the polishing machine. At this speed, the varnish under the disc heats up very quickly and with every second the risk of breaking through or setting it on fire increases. Therefore, try to polish the scratch across, pressing the polishing disc not with the entire surface, but only part of it. Polish at an angle and repeat the motion with the machine as if you were trying to sweep the scratch into a dustpan with a brush. If the scratch does not go away on the first pass, let the surface cool until it stops burning the inner surface of the left hand. Apply new drops of paste to the disc and repeat the procedure. Finishing and final polishing. For finishing we use a two-way polishing machine, a disc for fine abrasive paste and the fine abrasive paste itself. For example, a Rupes machine, a yellow Rupes disk and a Rupes polishing paste with a yellow cap. Degrease the surface after abrasive. We set the machine at 3500-4000 rpm. Spread the paste over the body with a disc, press start and polish. It is necessary to polish not only the place of the former scratch, but the entire surface of the wound, cleared of dirt. This way, at the same time, a local polishing spot is hidden so that it does not shine in a small area on the body. The entire area of the disc must be polished using vertical and horizontal passes. Until the characteristic heating of the varnish. Final polishing is only needed if you don’t have a two-way polishing machine and you have to get rid of holograms the old-fashioned way. We install a soft black polishing disc on the rotary machine, arm ourselves with anti-hologram paste and patience. We set the speed to maximum and begin polishing without skipping and thoughtfully. the car rolled through the sea buckthorn bushes. We don’t know why, it remains a mystery... But all the scratches were polished to a mirror shine.
Control of holograms and application of polish Place all polishing accessories aside. Apply anti-silicone over the entire surface of the body that has been polished. Then wipe again. Shine a flashlight. If streaks resembling clock hands are not visible, then everything is fine. If visible, these are holograms. It's hard to deal with them, but it's possible. There is a whole article on this topic. Polish is a camouflage cream based on paraffin and dye to match the body color. Used after polishing lapped areas to mask scratches down to the metal. If there are no scratches down to the metal, then use a sealant or carnauba wax to fill any grooves left by the scratches. This way you will achieve maximum effect. How to do this is written in detail in the article about carnauba polish. Polishing a scratch with your own hands. I am convinced that it doesn’t matter where the hands come from, as long as they are golden. There is a breed of men who will never pay money to anyone until they try to do it themselves three times. Fortunately, polishing a scratch is not as complicated a procedure as rebuilding an engine or beating rubber with a crowbar in the cold, so with the right level of enthusiasm and greed, polishing a scratch is not difficult. The first, painless option to polish a scratch yourself is to come and rent a box for an hour. The box contains all the necessary equipment and consumables described above. There is also a Master in boxing, under whose supervision it is not so boring to do something. He will always tell you how to do it correctly and warn you before a possible mistake. Now this option of self-polishing resembles an unsuccessfully hidden advertisement, but I assure you that there is no such task. The second option of polishing yourself is classic and familiar to the Russian peasant. We take the process described above and, without changing anything in the sequence, try to replace a professional tool with a household one. Expensive materials for cheap ones. And we stock up on expectation and hope that the result of self-polishing will be as close as possible to the professional result. I assure you this is real. A few tips for polishing scratches yourself: 1. if you don’t have a polishing machine, take a screwdriver with variable speed control and set the speed to 3. 2. if there are no special polishing washers for the screwdriver, buy a Velcro sole and attach a regular orange foam rubber pad to it. It costs 180-200 rubles in any auto store. 3. grinder, felt disc, white polishing pad, dish sponge, derl, drimmer, felt disc, angle grinder - ALL THIS IS NOT SUITABLE FOR INDEPENDENT POLISHING OF SCRATCHES! 4. Polishing pastes are expensive. You can buy 150 ml tubes of pastes for 300-400 rubles. If you don’t find it, ask the guys in the garage or at the car washes. Sometimes they give it for free. 5. To avoid buying anti-silicone, buy a regular degreaser for 50 rubles.
Insured event if a neighbor damages your car during a maneuver
When an insured event occurs, the insured person contacts a service station from the register declared by the insurance company. He can also independently choose this insurance company, but taking into account the opinion of the insurance company. That is, the company must approve the choice.
Also, these amendments to the law talk about direct compensation for damage in a collective collision. This is when more than two cars collide. In this case, in the event of an accident, the insured person does not apply to the insurance company of the person at fault, but directly to his own insurance company. And then insurance companies make mutual settlements among themselves.
How to remove scratches on a car body
Before removing scratches from the car body, you should first wash the car thoroughly (instructions on how to properly wash a car).
Then, on a cleaned body, it will be possible to assess the degree of damage to the paintwork (abbreviated as paintwork) and the depth of the scratches, and then determine how to remove them.
Based on the depth and size of scratches on the car body, the following options for removing them are possible:
- Removing scratches and small chips by polishing the body (manually or using a polishing machine);
- Shallow scratches of the varnish coating and other minor damage are removed using a restoration pencil (for example, Fix it Pro), colored wax or nanocompositions such as RENUMAX;
- Serious damage to paintwork, such as deep scratches down to “living” metal, is almost impossible to remove without painting. In such cases, you will have to spend a lot of money on touch-up paint.
Let's look at each of the methods for removing scratches from a car body in more detail and weigh their pros and cons.
