Scratch Your Cybertruck? Tesla Says You Can Fix It Yourself… With an Orbital Sander

While scrolling through the Cybertruck’s service manual to verify some info for a story, I stumbled across literature that recommended using an orbital sander to get rid of exterior scratches. While that’s not unheard of in the detailing industry for cleaning up scuffs and gouges, I was surprised to see it mentioned alongside routine maintenance. Though common misconceptions may imply otherwise, stainless steel—while known for its durability and corrosion resistance—isn’t entirely scratch-proof.

The Process

Let’s take a minor scratch, for example (one you can’t feel if you run your finger across it). If you scroll down through the manual page, it talks you through climbing the ladder from medium grit, to fine grit, and then to very fine grit. Once that’s done, you’re supposed to wash the dust off your truck, and that’s it. While Tesla recommends you get a professional to refinish the panels, from what we see, it doesn’t look all that difficult. Regardless, here’s everything else you need to know about why you can’t just polish a Cybertruck.

Before we continue, if you sand a single area, you’ll need to sand all of the other surfaces on that same plane to maintain a uniform finish. Tesla thought of this, and provided a neat infographic (see above) that color codes the sections you need to correct based on the affected area. For instance, if the scratch is in the green area, all other areas in green must be refinished.

The Material

While Tesla hasn’t disclosed the exact steel used for the Cybertruck, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) deduced that it’s a 301-grade stainless-steel alloy. What does that mean?

Stainless steel is, by definition, an alloy—a material created by combining two (or more) chemical elements, with at least one of them being a metal. Alloys are often used to optimize the material properties of a given metal, improving qualities like strength, hardness, and corrosion resistance. However, the creation of cold-rolled stainless steel’s nearly impervious properties sacrifices ductility and formability, which is likely why the Cybertruck has mostly flat body panels (more on that later).

Along with flexing concerns—we’ve all got ‘em—the Cybertruck’s steel panels are very susceptible to extreme temperature differences, making them very difficult to weld. This is likely why Tesla used glue to attach some of the body panels where they could. Many stainless steel companies also mention that spot welding is a common method for assembling 301-steel components.

Why Can’t You Just Polish It

If you try and polish a Cybertruck, you’ll end up with a mirror-like finish. It’s a similar issue other automakers have faced with matte-finish paint; the illusion of the matte finish comes from microscopic imperfections that stop light from reflecting directly back to your eyeballs. Polishing the Cybertruck to clean up these irregularities leads to a mirror-like finish, which is why you’ll need to use an orbital sander to maintain the same matte finish you get from the factory.

Unlike most cars that are painted and protected by a clear coat, the Cybertruck is just raw metal. Contrary to what you might think, the clear coat isn’t just there to add depth to your paintwork—it’s there to shield your paint from UV rays, dirt, debris, and… well… scratches. This extra layer makes it dead easy to remove scratches by leveling the surrounding bit of clearcoat to the lowest point of the scratch with a polisher and compound.

We should note that Tesla recommends using a die grinder in extreme cases to level out deeper scratches (for context, a die grinder is effectively a Dremel on steroids). But regardless of the tools you use, ridding your Cybertruck of scratches is advisable, as any deeper abrasions on the Cybertruck’s panels will eventually rust if not treated—these gouges pierce the outer oxide layer of the steel, meaning it’s no longer protected. And that got us thinking: if you’re sanding all of the body panels to get rid of a single scratch, doesn’t that leave those panels vulnerable too?

The Body Panels Aren’t Actually Flat

Despite the Cybertruck’s angular aesthetics, a recent video by Grand Tour presenter James May demonstrates that very few of the truck’s body panels are perfectly flat—most of them are very slightly convex. He raises a very interesting point: that if you give an object mostly flat surfaces (especially if it’s shiny), it will inherently look shrunken and deflated. As a result, many of the Cybertruck’s body panels are very slightly bulbous to fill out its aesthetics.

In the most James May-like fashion, he gets a ruler and checks every single body panel to see if it’s concave, flat, or convex. While you could make the argument that this is a convenient way to get around the material disadvantages of 301-grade stainless steel, it’s clear that the Cybertruck was always going to look this way. The end result is all about shock and awe—you wouldn’t buy one of these angular machines to be inconspicuous on the road, after all.

There’s No “Exoskeleton”

While we’re on the topic of the steel body panels, this is a great opportunity to talk about the fact that the initial aspiration to have the steel panels act as an exoskeleton—and serve as the primary structural component—didn’t really happen. Rather, the Cybertruck features a unibody design where the body panels and the chassis are integrated into the same structure. We should clarify: this isn’t to say that the panels don’t add some amount of strength. They’re just not the primary structural components.

Looking at sales numbers, it appears that Tesla is entering a bit of a Cybertruck slump. Times are as tough as they’ve ever been for Elon Musk’s automotive expedition. However, if you’ll allow us to put current events aside, it’s pretty amusing that you can polish up your Cybertruck with power tools alone. If you didn’t know already, DIY is very much in our DNA here at Popular Mechanics.

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