Guide · Basics
Light scratches machine-polished out, deeper ones filled and blended. In practice it means assessment by depth: clear coat, base coat or through to primer, plus the checks that confirm the fault was what it looked like.
Run a fingernail across the scratch. If it does not catch, the scratch is in the clear coat and a machine polish will remove it completely in an afternoon. If it catches, there is colour missing and it needs filling before it can be polished. That one test is the whole diagnosis, and it is why a scratch quote should never be given over the phone.
A scratch you cannot feel with a fingernail is above the colour layer and comes out with abrasive polishing, because polishing works by levelling the clear coat down to the base of the mark. One you can feel has gone through the clear and no amount of polishing will bring the missing colour back.
Machine polishing removes microns of clear every time. A panel that has been aggressively polished several times has very little left, and once it is gone the base coat is exposed and the panel needs a full refinish. Repeated cheap polishing is not free — it spends a finite resource.
Dubai compresses every wear cycle a car has. Ambient heat, fine airborne sand and the stop-start driving that most local mileage is made of mean components reach a given wear state at a lower odometer reading than the manufacturer's schedule assumes. Service intervals written for temperate climates are optimistic here, and this job is one of the places that shows.
You should be shown the old part, told what the test read before and after, and given the price you were quoted rather than a revised one. Those three are cheap for an honest workshop to provide and awkward for a dishonest one, which is exactly why they are worth asking for.
If your fingernail does not catch in it, yes — a machine polish removes it entirely. Anything deeper needs paint.
A polish-out on one panel is the low end. A fill-and-blend repair costs more but still far less than a full panel respray. We quote after seeing the depth.
Machine polishing is mobile. Anything that needs paint and a controlled environment happens at the workshop.
Call, or send your location on WhatsApp. We will tell you the price before we set off.
