When your car has been the victim of a hit and run accident, and you did not see it happen, it is very upsetting. However, if the other driver left streaks of paint on your vehicle, you can actually thank him or her for that. It will help identify the make and model of possible vehicles that hit your car, and narrow it down for the police. Here is how a collision repair service like Automotive Super Sports can help.

Photograph Your Damaged Car

Damage to vehicles also helps determine the height of the vehicles that hit them. For example, if a larger vehicle hit a smaller vehicle, the damage on the smaller vehicle will be up higher on the sides and rear of the smaller vehicle. Ergo, ask your repair technician to take pictures of the damage. You will need the pictures for your insurance company anyway. (You could also take pictures of the damage, but pictures from the auto shop reinforces the fact that someone else did this to your car, not you.)

Instruct the Repair Technician to Scrape and Save the Paint

Before the repair technician even begins his or her work on restoring your car, ask him or her to scrape the paint streaks off of your car and save those paint flakes. You can have an auto paint expert examine the paint flakes and break them down by chemical mix and color. These are important details to have when determining what vehicle hit yours and took off. 

Have the Paint Flakes Examined in a Lab or by an Auto Paint Specialist

A paint specialist can look at the paint flakes under a microscope to figure out what the exact color of paint the flakes are. He or she can also tell if the flakes of paint were a secondary or succeeding paint job on a vehicle that was a different color before. 

That helps narrow down:

• The paint color name, brand of paint, and paint color number
• The manufacturer of the car that hit yours, since manufacturers only use specific paints for their vehicles that no other auto manufacturer uses
• Whether or not this paint was added after the car came off the assembly line
• Some possible locations where the car might have been repainted, if applicable

Next, the paint specialist runs the paint flakes through a series of tests to get the chemical makeup of the paint. If the paint contains lead, you know that the car that hit yours was made prior to 1970, when lead paint was outlawed. Otherwise, other chemical markers in the paint tell you what the exact brand of paint is, which then reveals the car manufacturer that used that paint on certain models of vehicles that it produced and the years that it used that paint on its vehicles. Now you have almost a complete profile of the car that hit yours and took off, and all because of your auto collision repair experts!