A simple guide to fixing scratches on your car

• You can live with scratches on your car — but you shouldn't.
• It's relatively easy to repair them, but you need to purchase a kit and follow some steps.
• Just before winter is a good time to make repairs.

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, a while back I 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 as we get ready to once again confront Old Man Winter in much of the US, I decided to have another look at my ride. And sure, enough, there are some new nicks and scrapes to attend to.

Read on for a basic how-to for doing simple scratch repair:

SEE ALSO: Here are 2 good ways to fix a scratch on your car

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I've had my Prius for about three 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.