Educate me on removing tree branch lines from paint

This state sucks and black color sucks. Should have bought the blue 4Runner that was available.

 

Depends on the depth of the scratch. If the scratch is beyond the clear coat and into the paint, that ship has sailed

 

Nautical Blue would've shown scratches just as much as black. Getting rid of the scratches will depend on how deep they are. A paint correction may do the job. Some wet sanding with 3000 grit, then paint correction may be required. Touch-up paint, wet sanding, and paint correction may be required. If you don't have the tools or knowledge, take it to a trusted detailer or body shop.

Be careful when sanding. The clear coat on new Toyotas isn't the thickest and too much sanding/polishing may do more damage than good.

 

Aren't deep. Detail shop removed it for 100 bucks last time. Now there are too many of them

 

Too many

 

What you'll need to get it done right may cost more than a detail, but if you need to do it frequently enough, it will pay for itself.
You'll need all of the items for a full paint decontamination before starting the paint correction. This is important, to not introduce foreign materials that may cause more paint damage. Just watch some YouTube videos on what the professional detailers are using and how to do it properly.
Then you'll want to get a quality DA polisher. I use Griot's Garage G9 because of its reliability and lifetime warranty. For the compound, I use Meguiar's Ultimate Compound. For the polish, I use Meguiar's Ultimate Polish. For the paint sealant, I use Chemical Guys Jet Seal.
For sandpaper, just visit your local auto paint store and they can help with the right wet sanding paper and sanding blocks. They can also help with a paint depth gauge.

 

No matter how bad you think it is, it'll buff.
https://www.4runners.com/threads/pinstripes-ill-show-you-pinstripes.22335/

 

Hey thanks!

 

Mine is not that bad lol

 

Nobody's ever is.

 

I use a Griots buffer with some cutting / polishing compound on my vehicles and it works great. As long as they are not deep.

 

They are not visible on camera, and they can only be seen from a certain angle.

 

As long as it’s just in the clear coat this will do the trick. My dumba$$ brushed a rose bush backing up sober and scratched the side of my Tahoe from the front quarter to the rear. This stuff took care of it like it never happened.

 

If you want to invest in the tools and products to do it yourself, it’ll run ya around $300. Or you can just pay someone to do it.

happy to recommend some stuff

 

Please do

 

Holy hell, did you take a chainsaw to that?

 

With Toyotas i learned to not get upset over paint. I keep their underpin in tip top condition but as far as the paint go, eh. As long as it looks okay from 10 feet away I'm cool.

 

Consider it a souvenir from that awesome road trip you just took.

I’m in the same boat, I pinstriped the passenger side last fall after 5 years of nothing. Went on a trail that I never did. One and done.

 

Leave them alone. Badge of Honor for a 4Runner!

What the side of my van looks like after shoving it through brush and trees to get to a campsite:

 

Wow

 

f out.

Here in Northern NY (almost Canada eh?) we call them "northcountry pin stripes" If your fingernail won't catch in the stripe, it will buff out.

 

Just don't drive your car in the woods and you can avoid this problem altogether

 

You are right

 

But even if it won’t buff out completely, a little work manually buffing with a polishing compound will polish the scratch, so long as it’s not all the way through the clearcoat. The deepest ones are still there if you look super closely, but the scratch itself has the same shine as the rest of the paint. You can only see them from the right angle if you look for them.

My 4runner has gotten a fair amount of pinstripes. Some of them made me cry on the inside. However, I felt better once I did some manual buffing to the worst of them. They come out pretty nicely, but it takes a little work when doing it by hand.

@Yotaholic Now that I know they will come out, I’m not going to do any more buffing. Just because I don’t want it to turn into a regular thing with me rebuffing every year and wearing away the clearcoat. If I ever need to sell it, or if I stop off-roading it.m, then maybe I’ll learn to buff with a machine to get it cleaned up nicely by hand.

In the meantime, just using ceramic spray and wash product shines thing up enough for when I want to see my 4runner all pretty and shiny.

 

I just noticed some tiny white spots all over, four on the hood. Paint is coming off because of tiny impacts. You know what, I'm not going to do a thing about it. I will keep collecting all the smiles, almost 20,000 of them so far

 

We have the South Texas Pin Stripes on most of our ranch trucks. Mesquite thorns are nasty. On occasion, for the trucks that are still newer, I used a dual head Cyclo buffer. I start with the scrubbing pads and Meguiars Paint Scrub compound (as mentioned above, but the name seems to change from time to time), the polish with the step 2 polish and polishing pads, final coat is the wax with the finishing pads.

With your own equipment, you can get almost anything out that’s not all the way through the paint. However, for bad scratches, oxidation, etc. it takes PATIENCE. I’ve had to spend 10-15 minutes in small areas the size of a dinner plate just scrubbing, apply more compound, scrub, etc. to finally get it out. The Cyclo (and others like it) are guaranteed not to burn the paint and you just have to keep the pads wet and apply light pressure and gently move it back and forth and it’ll eventually get them out.

I’ll end with what others have said (and like the van above), we have two old trucks (one my very first from high school) covered just like that van and we don’t do anything but occasionally wash them and I personally think they look super cool.