Paint Chips

[mp3weenie]

I am new to having a decent car that I want to baby. I just bought a used 2013 Gen Sedan loaded. It was in immaculate condition. When I initially inspected the car is had maybe a single ding in the roof but I do not recall any paint chips.

A month later after hand washing the car myself I noticed I had a half dozen small chips where black is showing in the front lights bumper area and one on the hood. Don't know how it happened but never the less they are there.

How do you repair chips?

Also I have a light 12 inch clear coat scratch on the door which again I never noticed before.

A little bummed. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks. Jay

 

[NSXNEXT]

What color is your car? Depending on the color a filled/repaired chip can look good or horrible. I've never seen a paint chip fill that looks great.
My opinion is if you are asking how to fill chips you probably need to have a professional do it. I've personally tried products like www.langka.com with lackluster results. The process is to fill the chip with multiple layers with a final clear coat. Then polish the entire area to blend in the chip.
As for scratches, if you can feel them with your fingernail you are looking at a significant polishing effort.
Minor scratches can be removed by hand although for best results I'd recommend using a random orbit polisher (like the Porter Cable 7424). Again if you are asking how it's probably cheaper to just have a professional detailer handle it.
Rule of thumb with a RO polisher is start with the least abrasive pad/polish combo Andre the blemish is not removed step up to the next level. It's really an art to get it right. The good news with a RO polisher is you really have to try to ruin the paint. Let the polisher do the work. Do not push on it let it ride on the paint surface. Keep the pad from drying out to prevent burning the paint.

 

[mp3weenie]

The color is platinum metallic and it looks great and hopefully it is a good color to repair chips. I have no experience with detailing so I would probably be looking at going to a professional. For the chips do you look for professional detailers or a body/paint shop? I do not think I can feel the scratch with my fingernail but will have to double check.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Buford T Justice]

These cars seem to have very soft paint. Check the metal lip right above your windshield (you know, the metal lip that every other car produced on earth has covered up with a rubber seal?) Mine has chips in it that are now starting to rust...

 

[mp3weenie]

well i was totally bummed and here is the story. This is the first nice car I have had in decades even if it was almost two years old and 22k miles. New to me and had very few blemishes from my initial inspection and I was happy I got a lightly used car in pristine condition at a very fair price. I live outside of town and they were paving the country road that I drive most of my way to and from work. After two weeks I went to hand wash my car for the first time and I see all of these paint chips!!! I can only assume it was loose gravel from the pavements and perhaps some extra speed :<

 

[homeofstone]

These cars seem to have very soft paint. Check the metal lip right above your windshield (you know, the metal lip that every other car produced on earth has covered up with a rubber seal?) Mine has chips in it that are now starting to rust...

I am not sure your problem is due to soft paint. I have over 156,000 miles on my 2011 Genesis that I purchased new in 2010. It is driven on many types of roads here in Georgia, and in the Southeast U.S.. I do not have paint chips around the windshield and only a very few on the front bumper and none on the hood. I think your problem may be due to the road conditions, traveling too close to trucks and speed.

 

[dmitriylm]

These cars seem to have very soft paint. Check the metal lip right above your windshield (you know, the metal lip that every other car produced on earth has covered up with a rubber seal?) Mine has chips in it that are now starting to rust...

It's nothing specific to these cars but modern cars in general. Today's paint is quite different from that of older cars due to environmental regulations and I've found it is more prone to chipping. While I'm not certain, I also believe auto manufacturers may be using thinner coats to save costs and reduce weight. You'll find threads on many different car forums with owners noticing that the paint seems to be more chip/scratch prone on newer cars. I read the same issues when I had my BMW 5 series and Infiniti G35.

 

[Top Gear]

Oh no, it's not soft paint, but very, very hard paint. Hard paint (containing hardeners) is like glass - it's durable, yet it can chip seemingly from a freakin' grain of sand at the right angle at highway speeds, but most chips are from small rocks - like following trucks, etc. These cars have remarkably hard paint, which is good news because you'd have to go well out of your way to truly ruin it (using safe techniques, anyway). I use some of the most aggressive Meguiar's professional products available with a dual-action machine and it's still a lot of work to correct Hyundai's paint on my car.

Anyway, with chips, you can often get away with a lot using an inexpensive paint "pen" matching your coat, which will come with clear as well. Being black, it's easier to match my paint, but I've had varied results, some great, some not. I've also used the paint and clear from the pen with a fine point artist's brush to lay in the liquid to tiny craters. You let it dry and then work it a bit with compound and polish. Small chips really can disappear very easily (if you're patient and detail-oriented), while larger ones can at least be made hard to spot to the casual eye. Dr. Color Chip is also a method basically slabbing on a bunch of product to fill the holes, wiping off the excess, then letting it dry. Beyond these methods, a paint "blender" service is needed for $$, which is a guy who sands down the area and uses an airbrush. Lastly, a trip to the body shop can be the answer for $$$.

 

[mp3weenie]

So if I hit a patch of "loose gravel" at 60-70MPH on my country road, that might explain how I got a burst of chips??? Still I am trying to understand how this could have happened. The only other trip I took was lonely highway miles but I did crank it up a bit on a few stretches maybe 90ish MPH but no constructions, trucks, etc...

 

[Top Gear]

Yep, that time, and many other moments you'll never know about or remember, can all be the cause of scratches, chips, and surface impacts. If you look closely, say using a bright LED at night, you'll see horrors you never knew were there. I seem to have more chips and odd impact defects on the passenger's side behind the front wheel, since that's where more gravel, sand and trash can be found on the side of the road, but I have more grime and odd scratches on the driver's side, because that's where the dirty cars and trucks pass by. But, I get the most noticeable chips on the front clip, no matter how careful I am keeping distance - they just appear. It's going to happen to any car that's driven at interstate and back road speeds, just more noticeable on some paints, and there's nothing we can do about it except fix or minimize them

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[Buford T Justice]

I am not sure your problem is due to soft paint. I have over 156,000 miles on my 2011 Genesis that I purchased new in 2010. It is driven on many types of roads here in Georgia, and in the Southeast U.S.. I do not have paint chips around the windshield and only a very few on the front bumper and none on the hood. I think your problem may be due to the road conditions, traveling too close to trucks and speed.

You're probably right about it not actually being soft paint but it is definitely caused by a shitty design (no rubber seal where every other car ever has one).
I don't have any other serious chips on the front bumper or hood, just the exposed roof lip.

I can't avoid the road condition aspect in Wisconsin, they sprinkle debris on the road for 9 months out of the year here.

I drove a minivan (don't judge, it was free!) for 170,000 miles on the same roads and it was no different, except rust wasn't starting to form on the roof lip because that van was built with a rubber seal there...

 

[Westy]

I have a 2015 Tech in Caspian Black and have thousands of paint chips in the bumper and multiple in the hood with just 25000 kms on it ! Not happy !! I asked the dealer about the paint and they said they were not aware of any paint issues. ...

 

[Westy]

Pictures are hard to get in the right light but this shows chips at 27,000 kms or 16777.022 miles .

 

[yellow3.8track]

I've never had a car, or truck, get paint chips like my 2011 Coupe. Every time I wash that sucker I find new chips.

In the front "bumber" area, the hood, the top of the fenders and even a few on the roof.

I do not tailgate. Trucks, or cars. I don't have any gravel/dirt roads to drive on.

I've just accepted it. I like the car well enough that the poor ability of the paint to stay on the car isn't going to influence me to get rid of it.

Why does the paint seem to "fly" off the car? I don't have a clue. My wife's Fusion is one year older and has almost as many miles as my Coupe and it has a very, very, few paint chips on it. And she does follow too closely. I hate riding with her driving and I know she get's tired of me squirming around in the seat and finally telling her she needs to back off the car/truck in front of her.

 

[Westy]

Maybe it's too hard? I have owned about 6 cars and baby them but have never seen chipping this bad. Sucks

 

[iSOBigD]

At the end of the day you gotta fix the paint then cover it for next time with some type of "clear bra" or just accept it...

If you want to fix them, assuming the hits didn't chip the paint all the way down to the metal or plastic, you should be able to use a touch up pen to fill in the area and then paint using the same color as your car and clear coat. You can then wet sand it or buff it until perfectly smooth so it matches the rest of the paint. If it's worse, you can fill up the dents with putty, level it/sand it down, then paint over it, apply clear coat, sand/polish.

Here are some quick steps but there are millions of youtube videos on this too if you're interested:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-touch-up-a-deep-paint-scratch-in-your-car/

Just keep in mind imperfections on car paint are suuuuper noticeable especially when you wash it by hand and see everything up close. Also you will see different problems in different lighting conditions (Some people use a flash light when buffing the car to notice everything) so not all scratches are new but they might seem like it. To get paint to look perfect, the key is not just to buy matching color paint, but to make sure the surface you paint on is 100% smooth first. Any little imperfection will ruin the smooth reflections and be visible.

 

[nwhit]

As a former car dealer, have had lots of cars with rock chips. Have tried many pens, matchsticks, brushes, etc. over the years. On my BMW, I finally found the Dr Colorchip system and it is significantly better than any other solution I had tried before (short of sanding and professionally repainting a section, which has its own issues especially with anything metallic).

The real key to this system as opposed to pens or tubes or brushes, etc., is that the paint is applied and fills in any and all chips, then it is leveled off smooth so there are no variations in height that can be detected by sight or feel. My black BMW had a ton of front chips and virtually all of them became nearly invisible. Its a good system.

With my new 2012 Genesis, its pearl white and has a handful of rock chips (very minor). The problem with this car is the triple layer process to accomplish the pearl look. Unfortunately it can't be duplicated or matched with any touch-up paint. Trying to spot sand and paint would be a disaster. That said, small chips will likely be invisible using a model/brand-specific correct pure white Dr Colorchip kit.

Had a similar issue with a previous silver metallic BMW. VERY hard to get any touch-up to match the metallic. But at least the Dr colorchip didn't leave any peaks or dips to see or feel.

 

[Huddleston]

As a former car dealer, have had lots of cars with rock chips. Have tried many pens, matchsticks, brushes, etc. over the years. On my BMW, I finally found the Dr Colorchip system and it is significantly better than any other solution I had tried before (short of sanding and professionally repainting a section, which has its own issues especially with anything metallic).

The real key to this system as opposed to pens or tubes or brushes, etc., is that the paint is applied and fills in any and all chips, then it is leveled off smooth so there are no variations in height that can be detected by sight or feel. My black BMW had a ton of front chips and virtually all of them became nearly invisible. Its a good system.

With my new 2012 Genesis, its pearl white and has a handful of rock chips (very minor). The problem with this car is the triple layer process to accomplish the pearl look. Unfortunately it can't be duplicated or matched with any touch-up paint. Trying to spot sand and paint would be a disaster. That said, small chips will likely be invisible using a model/brand-specific correct pure white Dr Colorchip kit.

Had a similar issue with a previous silver metallic BMW. VERY hard to get any touch-up to match the metallic. But at least the Dr colorchip didn't leave any peaks or dips to see or feel.

Thanks for sharing. I've heard of this system before but never met anyone with experience with it.

 

[amartz]

Gee, I don't have any rock chips on the front of mine! At least not any more.......