Really Annoyed

[WylieCoyote]

I'm annoyed because I've managed to acquire a little parking scuff on the offside corner of the front bumper. It's taken it down to the black and my feeble attempts at sorting it out with touch up paint just don't do it. I'm really annoyed about it, but yesterday we were driving to the Barley Mow pub in Milford (top class food I'll add!) and some moron in a Polo flew past on the dual carriageway and gave me 2 nice little stone chips in the offside rear door. They're actually quite deep and expose bare metal. I've stuck some touch up paint on to stop any corrosion but I reckon I'm going to have to have them done properly. I had a quote of £50 to fix the bumper scuff. Only problem is, the bumper has quite a few stone chips in it so I'm wondering whether just to get the whole bumper resprayed. The guy reckons £150 with a perfect paint match.

I don't want to become totally obsessed every time my car gets a little chip but similarly I don't want to not care about the state of my car either.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom about these scratch repair companies? Or indeed any particular one you can recommend? Anything to watch out for etc...

Thanks :)

[Mr Mole]

Asked a guy at Chips Away for a quote for a stone chip on my bonnet.

He looked at it and said he could only do it as good as another stone chip I sorted with touch up paint.

So you are paying for a guy to do what you can fix yourself.

So I got the whole bonnet resprayed.

But after two months I had another stone chip.

So pay your money take your chance

[maneesh]

Stone chips are part of life, and every car is at risk on public roads.

This link may be of interest in terms of stone chip protection.

Pistonheads stone chip protection discussion

Incidentally, stone chips on the front of the car arise from motorway journeys, where the car in front will be kicking up stones on the road heading for your car. The closer you drive to the car in front the more likely you are to get chips! Another solid reason not to tailgate. That wasn't aimed at you matey, just a general piece of background info.

Hmmm, if the stone chips are deep, I'd suggest a respray rather than the chipsaway kind of people.

HTH.

[Tom-18]

My only advise is get them done at a garage or someone who will be able to shopw you how good of a match they touchins will be, if someone comes to you in a van (fob them off) especially if there willing to spray any part of your car outdoors (Overspray anyone??). My experience is the paint is from somehere like halfrauds and there not verry good at matching paint to be honest!

Any good company will be able to mix the paint up to a perfect match! They will also put a basecoat down, let it dry then paint then laquer, flat it down with wet and dry and power polish it back up! I do it at work and its not a 5 min job! (if done properly)

Tom.

[SpokesT]

Perhaps a big piece of duct tape on the front of the bonnet would help

[WylieCoyote]

The stone chips on the back door - I've put some Lexus touch up paint in them with a fine brush so at least they won't get any worse. I've calmed down since this morning - I was hopping mad when I was looking at them, now they're touched up and I've settled down I'm not so bothered by them.

The parking scuff isn't actually really noticable at a quick glance - again I put some paint on it and it's improved but it still annoys me. On my way to work, out of curiosity's sake, I stopped in my local chips away. Guy said that although my paint is a nice colour, it's a nightmare to match and if i wanted the bumper doing I'd be looking at the bumper, bonnet and both wings needing respraying to get a better match. To do 2 tiny stone chips on the back door he's have to respray both doors - total cost ~£500-600 +VAT. It's only a couple of panels away from being a total respray. He advised any company that touches things up only does what I've done with the paint so he said it's probably not worth it. At the end of the day, you get everything done, drive home and pick up 3 stone chips driving down your street. Like you say, pays your money and you takes your chances. I'm not going to bother.