Your two choices for a scratch that can be felt with a finger nail are a touch up pen or brush, or if it didn't penetrate the clearcoat you can buff or wet sand and buff to remove it. Obviously the buff or wet sand and buff should not be undertaken by someone without experience doing such work as burning through the paint is easy if you don't know what you are doing. Seek out a body shop or detail shop that does paint correction for an expert evaluation and possible solution. If you touch it up it may be just as noticeable as the scratch itself. I tend to reserve touch up for places where the primer or metal is exposed.

 

What about the minor, light scratches? Are there any products that are effective on those? Preferably ones to be used by hand as I don't plan on undertaking any electric tools for this. I'll try my hand at fixing things around the house with a little more abandon, but don't want to mess the car up in any way.

 

Unless it is deep, or even when it is deep. I live with it. I use a touch-up paint pen and I fill it and/or I use a Turtle Wax Pen and I fill it. You can't get all the scratches, more so on a daily driver.

 

Ironically, I am in the same situation with the same car and color. I think "Predawn Gray Mica" is just a color that will show all of the blemishes on the paint. It similarly shows all the dirt and dust too. I have some small stone chips on my front end that I plan to fill with the Toyota 1H1 paint pen. I'm also considering seeking professional chip repair, not sure if it's worth the cost though. I plan to use compound and polish, as others have said, because it will definitely help to blend after filling with paint pen. One tip I continue to see everywhere, use a very small applicator with the paint pen, like a toothpick. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Thank you. I insisted (it was not hard to get - Toyota dealership people are definitely more forthcoming and much nicer than Hyundai) on them giving me the pen since the car had all these little scratches, some a little deeper. But now I'm a little apprehensive about using it. I'm worried I will screw some part of the process up and make the scratches look worse rather than better. Definitely let me know how it goes.