Touch Up Mazda's Special Soul Red Crystal Metallic Paint - Here's How

Our long-term tester, Mazda's CX-5 Grand Touring in Soul Red Crystal Metallic needed some scratches touched up. Here's how the repair went.

Torque News has been following the new 2018 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring purchased by one of our colleagues. So far, there has been nothing to report. The CX-5 has performed flawlessly with zero issues. Its first maintenance was complimentary from our local Mazda dealer (Liberty Mazda Wakefield, Mass.) and the vehicle has met or exceeded all of the owner's expectations. Unfortunately, it suffered some visible scratches when it was parked next to a vehicle whose owner was careless and opened their door into the CX-5, causing minor damage to the paint. During the first maintenance visit, we picked up the Mazda touch-up paint kit and opted to give it a try to see how well it could hide scratches in the special Soul Red Crystal Metallic paint.

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First a bit about the paint. Mazda says of the special blend "Its unique three-layer paint process uses the changing light to create a sense of movement, even at standstill." The color is a knock-out and if there is a better red on the market today we haven't seen it. The added cost for the paint is $595. The vehicle was purchased in February and has held up to New England winter, spring, and summer well. We have not found it to be any different in terms of durability than other paints. We will say that the red hides small imperfections and dings better than black or dark blue. Otherwise, it is normal and we expect good longevity. We should note that the color is loved by all that have seen it and the owner is thrilled with the choice.

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Like many touch-up kits, this one came in the form of a pen with two ends that add paint. One end is a base coat. The other is a final coat. We followed the directions carefully. Step one is to clean the area. Our images and video focus on the largest of the scratches we repaired, but we also did a few stone chips on the hood. After the cleaning one shakes the pen for a minute, then gently dabs the base coat tip on some cardboard to help the ink to flow. You can see the tip in the video. Once the ink is ready one simply applies it in a very minimal way. We were careful not to put on the layers very thick. Less is better. After 20 minutes, we applied the second base coat and then the final coating.

Prior to the touch-up treatment, the scratches were easily recognizable from about 10 feet away. After the treatment (second shown above), the scratches do not catch the eye. If one looks closely at the area touched up it is slightly visible. We have done such touch-up repairs on dozens of cars and we would say that Mazda's kit provides a result at least as good, if not better, than the best results we have gotten in the past on other brands.