Now I know what you meant by thin paint...

[dbarnett66]

After reading a few threads about thin paint, I thought some of you might be a little anal about scratches. I now see the light, as my son slightly brushed against the passenger rear quarter panel with his back pack on. I saw the scratches appear right before my eyes. I am now the broud owner of 4 or 5 six inch scatches. Absolutely freaking ridiculus that the paint will gave way to a slight brush with a 7 year old. Other than paint, my truck is fine.

Maybe I should just Line-X XTRA the whole truck in Nautical Blue and I will never worry again....

[rockstate45]

you wouldn't have to worry about door dings either! lol

The paint is REALLY thin. It bugs me too. Before my dad sold our '98 Expedition that had only a few scratches, one of which came from a Chocolate Lab jumping up on the door and leaving a small upside down V shaped scratch (beats me how he did it). The rest of the paint was absolutely perfect.

-rockstate

[dbarnett66]

Oh man....I have a 6 month old female Chocolate Lab. I did not even think of the ramifications of that angle.

[Badfish]

I thought the same way db, that's until I washed my truck for the first time this winter a few days ago. Scratches everywhere and one really nice door ding.

Anyone know the best product for removing light scratches? I think I'm SOL on the door ding.

[rockstate45]

Best way to remove scratches is to take it to your Toyota dealership and ask them. They'll tell you to take it to the body shop, in which case you go cut some onions, THEN take it to the body shop and see what they can do. In that awesome girly voice you've been practicing for hours leading up to this moment, ask them "how much?" and if you get lucky, they'll say free. Worked for me

Oh yeah, forgot to add this part haha. They'll then buff out the scratch.

If it's not very deep then you could try the 3m route at Walmart. It's like $8. I tried it on some smaller scratches and it does minimize them a little bit but not enough to be completely gone, that's for sure.

-rockstate

[guntech]

The worst part about it is that it doesn't take much of a scratch to go all the way thru the paint and primer.

[mhadden]

Be careful when polishing...I've already read a story over at autopia that a guy polished his buddies Tundra and burned a whole in the paint...

[highway74]

I too recently found out about the thin paint, I was a bit surprised at how easy it scratches! Still love the truck though!

[CW427]

I recently washed mine and found a bunch of small thin scratches down the front of my hood. All I could figure is that when a bunch of snow was built up on there the hood warmed up from the engine heat and when I hit the brakes it all goes sliding off. Yep, a little bit of dust/dirt under the snow, snow slides off and scratches the bejesus out of my hood.

[gregdreg]

I put my first scratch on the other day when walking between my truck and another. I got too close and my knife clip rubbed on the rear drivers side. I will never make that mistake again because I started to carry my knife inside my pocket. I didn't get all mad about it because I did it, and now It feels more like MY truck.