Cold Weather Damage To Paintwork
Wednesday, 13. January 2010
The cold snap meant that, for the first time in years in the south of England, drivers were not only having to deal with driving in very snowy and icy conditions but also have had to clear large amounts of snow and ice off their bodywork and screens. In some cases I saw drivers clearing snow that had turned to ice off their car with a spade and another with a piece of wood. Whilst most were reasonably sensible and used plastic scrapers they have still left some quite large scuff marks on the bodywork. If these marks were on a lease car you may face end of lease refurbishment charges. It was only a few years ago when leasing companies would ignore such marks as being simply superficial, as the paint wasn’t broken. However, more recently leasing companies have been very tough on return car conditions as many now see this as a profit opportunity. It is therefore important that you remove these marks, most of which can be polished out or if they are a little worse, some T Cut and a bit of elbow grease should do the trick. Any worse and it would be worth taking the car to a bodyshop and let them run their buffer over the scuffs for a small charge. Whatever you do don’t return the car in that condition or you may find yourself with bills of several hundreds of pounds. By Graham Hill
