# How do you deal with Stone Chips?



## Guest (Oct 4, 2020)

Stone chips are an unfortunate part of owning a car that sees motorways, especially in some parts of the country where grit is dropped in winter and HGV's clog the roads and kick up stones. I imagine most details on this forum are a bit OCD about keeping their cars shiny and mint looking. I'm curious how others here feel when they get a chip, and more to the point, how they deal with them?

I just picked up my 1st chip on mine on the front wing, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't loose a bit of sleep over it. On previous cars I've tended to touch up best I could, wet sand, compound and then live with the results, which is never perfect, and it'd always bother me. With my current car the paint is quite thin (thanks Audi), and perls never touch up well, and smart repairs are always a bit soft and rarely match well on side panels. Instinct wants the car painted, but I think it'd be mad to do for 1 chip and more are probably inevitable. Everyone else says just live with it....

What do you do when you get a chip?


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

Although I voted body shop to make it mint again I doubt I’ll ever have that problem as my M2 is PPF.


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

DannyRS3 said:


> Stone chips are an unfortunate part of owning a car that sees motorways, especially in some parts of the country where grit is dropped in winter and HGV's clog the roads and kick up stones. I imagine most details on this forum are a bit OCD about keeping their cars shiny and mint looking. I'm curious how others here feel when they get a chip, and more to the point, how they deal with them?
> 
> I just picked up my 1st chip on mine on the front wing, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't loose a bit of sleep over it. On previous cars I've tended to touch up best I could, wet sand, compound and then live with the results, which is never perfect, and it'd always bother me. With my current car the paint is quite thin (thanks Audi), and perls never touch up well, and smart repairs are always a bit soft and rarely match well on side panels. Instinct wants the car painted, but I think it'd be mad to do for 1 chip and more are probably inevitable. Everyone else says just live with it....
> 
> What do you do when you get a chip?


In your case I suppose if I was you I'd let the car collect some road rash then book in to body shop for a proper job.


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## Kerr (Mar 27, 2012)

They are inevitable. Touching them in is the best way to go. 

I've yet to find a bodyshop or smart repairer that will spend time trying to finish in every stone chip like some guys have on here.


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## 350Chris (May 12, 2016)

A little from column A and a little from column B...I touch up where I can but the front of my car is flat for all intents and purposes; so the road rash is unavoidable.

Once it’s get past a certain point, I tend to get it painted - it is just about due the body shop trip again but I need to find a new one after the last one closed.

Once done this time, I think I’ll go PPF like SB above to give a bit more protection


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## -Kev- (Oct 30, 2007)

Id say ppf if you wanted to prevent them from day one, having a front end respray is great til its chipped again straight away


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## atbalfour (Aug 11, 2019)

-Kev- said:


> Id say ppf if you wanted to prevent them from day one, having a front end respray is great til its chipped again straight away


Don't know what's worse, horrible looking expensive PPF or stone chips!


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

They are inevitable and at 30k miles a year, I've learned to live with the road rash on the front of a car...

However, I will touch in bigger chips which go through the paint layer to prevent any risk of rust... 50/50 mix of colour coat and lacquer, dabbed in with a tooth pick in thin layer and allowed to dry and repeat till the repair sits proud of the paint, then gently sand back till the repair is flush and machine polish out. Takes a few summers days to do. In winter, I will do what I can to ensure there is no exposed metal work. 

Particular place to keep an eye on is above the windscreen - you can get nasty chips up there from flying stones and if you miss them, they can led to little rust bubbles on some cars so best to keep an eye and touch in as you see them. 

If I wanted my car to be mint with no chips, it'd have to stay in the garage and that's not what my cars are bought for.


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## -Kev- (Oct 30, 2007)

atbalfour said:


> Don't know what's worse, horrible looking expensive PPF or stone chips!


If the ppf has been poorly fitted that is


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

atbalfour said:


> Don't know what's worse, horrible looking expensive PPF or stone chips!


PPF isn't horrible looking, if done correctly and professionally, you'll never notice it. You would have to look very hard to see where the joins are and the untrained eye will never notice them. My car is 18 months old and not a single stone chip, God knows how bad my car would look now without PPF.


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## VenomUK (Oct 13, 2011)

Many factors play a pat here. If its your £500 daily blender or your £50k pride and joy. Both can be treated to a pro job or a DIY job with similar levels of outcome.


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## atbalfour (Aug 11, 2019)

Soul boy 68 said:


> PPF isn't horrible looking, if done correctly and professionally, you'll never notice it. You would have to look very hard to see where the joins are and the untrained eye will never notice them. My car is 18 months old and not a single stone chip, God knows how bad my car would look now without PPF.


Joins are one thing but PPF masks the finish, feel and look of well looked after paint IMO.

I have worked on cars with it applied and have never been impressed by the finish and despite being well applied you're able to tell immediately - though I can't say how high a quality this PPF was - on 4 cars I've done in the last couple of years with it on I've not noticed a huge difference.

I do see Kamikaze applying it every other day on Instagram (surely they do good PPF!?) and even still it wouldn't be my cup of tea personally. Can absolutely understand why people get it, it's offers great protection but just like phone screen covers, I don't buy a £1k phone to put a £3.99 sheet of film over the curved screen... I'll continue to pay the phone insurance company / body shop and enjoy the finish of what I've spent money on.


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Soul boy 68 said:


> PPF isn't horrible looking, if done correctly and professionally, you'll never notice it. You would have to look very hard to see where the joins are and the untrained eye will never notice them. My car is 18 months old and not a single stone chip, God knows how bad my car would look now without PPF.


Any PPF that can protect against deer, pheasants, rabbits, hare etc that just love running out in front of my car?!


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2020)

Thanks for all the replies guys, keep am coming!

PPF doesn't protect form every ding, and it it gets a knick its not cheap to replace either. In some cases as much as having the panel painted, and even worse if the film and the paint get damages and double your costs. If it saved every chip and ding I could see more merit in it, and while it helps stop the smaller chips and scratches, those tend to be the kind that cn be wet sanded and polish out anyway. So I found it hard to justify the £3-5k to have it done professionally. Just doing the front doesn't look right to me, and finding a good fitter in some areas is not easy. Badly fitted film looks horribly cheap.

I'd appreciate if we could keep this to dealing with chips rather than a discussion on PPF if that's ok.


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

atbalfour said:


> Joins are one thing but PPF masks the finish, feel and look of well looked after paint IMO.
> 
> I have worked on cars with it applied and have never been impressed by the finish and despite being well applied you're able to tell immediately - though I can't say how high a quality this PPF was - on 4 cars I've done in the last couple of years with it on I've not noticed a huge difference.
> 
> I do see Kamikaze applying it every other day on Instagram (surely they do good PPF!?) and even still it wouldn't be my cup of tea personally. Can absolutely understand why people get it, it's offers great protection but just like phone screen covers, I don't buy a £1k phone to put a £3.99 sheet of film over the curved screen... I'll continue to pay the phone insurance company / body shop and enjoy the finish of what I've spent money on.


It's been a little while since I had a close look at a car with PPF, so times may well have changed, but the last ones I saw... you couldn't see joins unless you really got the fine tooth comb out for a look, but it just didn't seem to have the same 'gloss' as the uncovered paint finish. Almost like a very slight and subtle mask of the true finish.

What ran through my head was by applying the PPF, I was protecting the finish for someone else to enjoy rather than me. So I've never really been interested... however times may well have changed and maybe a good PPF is truly equal to the finish of the uncovered paint now? In which case I can see they would make sense for many people, or if people are worried about stone chips, I can also see why for some people they do make sense... just not for me.

(FWIW - I also don't put a screen cover over my phone screen... my wife does, and it just doesn't look quite as good as without one and at the end of the day, once I'm done with my phone, it'll just get sold to CEX where they'll likely grade it as a B whether it has a screen protector or not).


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

DannyRS3 said:


> Thanks for all the replies guys, keep am coming!
> 
> PPF doesn't protect form every ding, and it it gets a knick its not cheap to replace either. In some cases as much as having the panel painted, and even worse if the film and the paint get damages and double your costs. If it saved every chip and ding I could see more merit in it, and while it helps stop the smaller chips and scratches, those tend to be the kind that cn be wet sanded and polish out anyway. So I found it hard to justify the £3-5k to have it done professionally. Just doing the front doesn't look right to me, and finding a good fitter in some areas is not easy. Badly fitted film looks horribly cheap.
> 
> I'd appreciate if we could keep this to dealing with chips rather than a discussion on PPF if that's ok.


If that's the case then I'll stand by what I said in #3. But then again I have an expensive sports car so I'd want to keep it in immaculate condition so that's what I'd do periodically after when I think the whole front end has taken a hammering.


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## P2K (Jun 17, 2020)

Recently did the wifes car.
White 2012 Fiesta with 88k on the clock.

Went round all the chips I could see and wet sanded (3000 grit) to level off and clean the chip out.
Used some alcohol wipes to clean the area of any contamination and then used official Ford touch up kit.

First the white paint filling the chip, letting it dry for approx 10 mins between coats, then put the clearcoat on.

I purposely overlapped the clear coat onto the original clearcoat and left for a few days to ensure it was really set hard, probably an overkill but isn't detailing often classed as an overkill :lol:

Once I was happy it was hard, cleaned the area again and wet sanded level.

Finished off by hand with a full car paint correction using Meguiars Ultimate Compound, Ultimate Polish and then Ultimate Liquid Wax.

The vast majority of the chips were completely gone, no visible marks left behind, and the eight year old cars paintwork popped again.

Took hours but very happy with the results, as was the wife and the neighbors :argie: (Yes they want their cars doing too ) 

On to my car next :wall:
Bought a DA for my car though :buffer:


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## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

A dab of supposedly the correct colour paint.


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## Itstony (Jan 19, 2018)

Totally agree with *Soul Boy 68*. :thumb:
Life is about making concessions, nothing is perfect. If you are paying top-$ on a car and stone chips would break your heart, PPF is the way forward.
With many that have that car, it can be a once in a life time.
Absolute no brainer imho. :wall:


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

DannyRS3 said:


> Thanks for all the replies guys, keep am coming!
> 
> PPF doesn't protect form every ding, and it it gets a knick its not cheap to replace either. In some cases as much as having the panel painted, and even worse if the film and the paint get damages and double your costs. If it saved every chip and ding I could see more merit in it, and while it helps stop the smaller chips and scratches, those tend to be the kind that cn be wet sanded and polish out anyway. So I found it hard to justify the £3-5k to have it done professionally. Just doing the front doesn't look right to me, and finding a good fitter in some areas is not easy. Badly fitted film looks horribly cheap.
> 
> I'd appreciate if we could keep this to dealing with chips rather than a discussion on PPF if that's ok.


Unless it's a large stone hitting your car at motorway speed then it would damage PPF and the cars bodywork which would be pure bad luck so both would need repairing. Small shingles or stone which are typical and common in stone chipped cars would just bounce off PPF and not effect it. PPF is also self healing so if for example your car brushes against thorny overhanging bushes and leaves scratches then the suns UV rays and warmth will heal the scratch/s. I've even had the windscreen and headlights PPF so it reduces the risks of chipped windscreen and cracked lenses.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2020)

My stone chips tend to be the large unlucky ones, which PPF won't save. Small chips tend to sand and polish out.


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## mac1459 (Aug 25, 2011)

My car is just about 2 years old & flipping hell i found a stone chip on the nearside wing today after washing . Yes i do hate stone chips , car has only done 6000 miles , BMW individual paint , so will get it sorted , then front ppf. my choice 
Mac.


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## Derek Mc (Jun 27, 2006)

I am a dab catagory however I have a few art brushes 000 size plus a toothpick to move the paint around the chip, and finally use a jewellers 10x loupe.

I just reread this post and yes, I do know I sound anal retentive,,,,,, :lol:


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