Spring has arrived, so here’s a step-by-step guide to fixing a scratch on your car

You can live with scratches on your car – but you shouldn’t.

Scratches are like the old torture of death by a thousand cuts. Eventually, they’ll destroy your car’s finish by allowing rust to develop on metal parts. And like the great Canadian poet said, rust never sleeps.

Neil Young references aside, I recently suggested two ways to repair scratches. While I was dispensing this basic advice, it occurred to me that I had some scratches on my own car, a 2011 Toyota Prius, that needed attending to, certainly as winter arrived in the Northeast, where I live.

I took care of them, but now that spring has rolled around, I can see some new damage. Time to break out the scratch-fixing kit for another run.

Read on for a basic how-to:

I’ve had my Prius for a couple of years — lots of time to acquire a few dings and scratches.

Here’s the one I decided to repair first: a narrow scribbled scrape. Ugly! Mind you, this scrape was in my plastic bumper. But I had others in the metal body panels.

A company called TouchUpDirect sells repair kits. For about $30, I got a paint pen to match my car’s color, as well as a clear coat pen. Clearcoat is the transparent layer that protects the finish.

Here’s a link to the company’s site. I don’t recommend or endorse the product, but in my case, it worked well.

TouchUpDirect includes a test card and provides instructions on its website to use the products.

STEP 1: Clean the scratched surface.

STEP 2: Shake up the paint inside the pen.

STEP 3: Double check that you got the right color and …

… STEP 4: Compare to your car’s finish. In my case, it was a perfect match. TouchUpDirect has a database of auto manufacturers, makes, and model years so you can get the correct color.

STEP 5: Apply the paint to the scratch. I found that I had to use several coats for this step.

Voila! The scratch is now filled in with paint. I allowed about five minutes between coats.

STEP 6: Let the paint dry. I gave it around 30 minutes.

STEP 7: Apply the clearcoat.

Nothing to it. But I needed three coats to get what I thought was acceptable coverage.

STEP 8: Let the clearcoat dry and pat yourself on the back for another automotive repair well done. I could have sanded, buffed, and waxed the area for a more pristine fix, but honestly the bumper will never look new again, so I was happy to seal the damage.