Spring has arrived, so here's a step-by-step guide to fixing a scratch on your car

You can live with scratches on your car - but you shouldn't.

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, I recently 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 now that spring has rolled around, I can see some new damage. Time to break out the scratch-fixing kit for another run.

Read on for a basic how-to: