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Stone chip help.

jimbothemagnificent

jimbothemagnificent

Messages
2,683
My front bumper is in a rather sorry state, I need some advice on how to clean it up a bit. There are a few similar chips on the bonnet and wing mirrors.
All the grit and stones on the roads around here are a nightmare, this is what they do:

03052012778.jpg


What would be my best course of action? Is there any products out there that will help? Or is an expensive bodyshop repair the only option?
 
I had a bonnet/bumper respray around christmas and since then i've been keeping my distance from the cars infront of me however I still managed to get a couple of chips, might have just been unlucky though. However a gritter lorry gave me a huge load of chips on the bonnet and bumper in one single "attack" when I met it one day as I was going at about 60mph on an A road (it was oncoming traffic). I was majorly ****ed, I should have turned around and chased it tbh but I couldnt confirm the damage until I stopped to check.
From the distribution of chips on my bonnet before respraying I think that most chips must be from the cars infront, and the stones can travel quite some distance so to prevent hitting them you have to really keep your distance.

so using poorboys black hole, wax, sealant etc can mask the appearance somewhat (from a distance) but respraying is the only fix. Touch up paint might be useful if you had one or two chips but generally looks worse and more obvious than before.
 
Yep that's pretty much what I thought. In the winter there are more gritters on the road than cars here, you can't drive anywhere without being gritted.

How much did you're bonnet and bumper respray cost?
 
I think I was unlucky with the gritter because there is probably no damage done if you slow right down, but I had no opportunity to do so.

Not sure because I got almost a full respray and had some dents taken out, maybe £300? Felt so much better driving a car with perfect paintwork though. If it's important to you, get some quotes whilst making sure they know you are seeking several other quotes and then haggle with them. You could try to source a bumper/splitter/bonnet but I think that would be more expensive and they would more than likely have chips on them too.
 
I wouldnt recomend it but I just had an accident and damaged the front of my car, needed the bonnet and bumper to be repaired and resprayed so it came back with all the stone chips gone, it does feel so much better when you know there aren't any there. Before that though i did look at getting a new splitter as this was the worst bit, there are quite a few on ebay and one company i found will spray it to match your car so it can be fitted when you get it and prices werent to bad iirc.
 
also wondering how deep some of those chips are, hard to tell from the pics but if they are just in a thin layer of clearcoat a machine polish might help
 
Yeah, I think the way to go is to get the front resprayed, the whole front end feels like a teenager's face when you're polishing it. This photo probably makes it look worse than normal, I'd just finished t-cutting it, so there will be some polish in the chips. I've had another good look at it tonight, I'm pretty sure it's beyond polish/touch up paint. I don't fancy buying new parts, I imagine it's pretty hard getting the paint to match exactly. I'd rather have a professional worry about that for me.

I'll have a look for bodyshops tomorrow, i'm pretty sure there's a few around, the highlands are hard on cars. Good idea to get quotes and haggle, I'm going to haggle the hell out them.

Does anybody know the NHB paint code?
 
i had my front end resprayed around 5 months ago, its absolutely covered in stone chips again already,
if you do a lot of miles then i wouldn't bother getting it resprayed as its just gonna be like it again in a few months time!
 
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