Best way to get rid of stone chips?

[simke 0]

I've got quite a few small stone chips on front bumper, around headlights and some on the front part of the bonnet. Not really visible from distance, but once you get close it looks ugly, white spots on black car.

Any suggestions as to what is the best way to deal with this? I thought about using touch up paint at first, but there is so many of them that this doesn't look like an option. What is a good place in Akl to take the car to so someone can have a look? Not planning to do this right away, but would like to sort it out in the next couple of months. Just looking for different options at the moment.

Cheers

[bmpower 3]

Depending on the colour and how bad the stone-chipping is i would at least give brush-touching a go. I recently did mine, which had ALOT of chips. Go to your local paint shop get the right colour, a small thin paintbrush and go for it! Once it drys i polish the areas i touched up to smooth it over.

I was going to paint my bonnet and bumper but it has come it really good, so will save that expense for next time round. If it is REALLY bad get a few quotes, go by word of mouth and take it to a paintshop to be painted (we did this with my mums e36 touring)

[simke 0]

Thanks, I might try brush-touching on few of them to see what it will look like, but I think there is too many chips for this to be efficient.

Now the question is which places in Akl are recommended to go to for a quote?

[greenday-rulz21 6]

Well, the only options I would think there would be are a touch a bottle or a front end respray.

I've just touched up the front on my e36 with the little bottle and brush you get from BMW and the result is 1000 x better than before. Before when you walked up to the car you could easily notice all the chips (probably first thing people noticed). And after, you can't see any. At a distance it looks immaculate, and they're very hard to find even when your looking for them.

$20 compared to $100's for a front end respray. Its worth a try anyway.

[Mark 178]

My old car had heaps of stone chips and I was going to give this a go:

Doctor Colour Chip

[kiwi535 538]

get someone in a mitsubishi to rear end you.Your car will hardly be damaged.The get the repairer to quote you a respray of bonnet etc.....

[M325is 0]

Prevent it from happening in the first place and get me to put some stone guard on it for you.

If I ever buy another car its the first thing I will do to it. Bloody chips on my M325i are annoying!

[simke 0]

Thanks for all your suggestions, I'll give touch paint a go first and see how it goes. As soon as I recover from my injury that is

Prevent it from happening in the first place and get me to put some stone guard on it for you.

If I ever buy another car its the first thing I will do to it. Bloody chips on my M325i are annoying!

I'll definitely consider stone guard once I've painted all the chips.

Cheers

Edited March 2, 2009 by Simke

[elmarco 56]

Eurocollision or Evans European for the front end respray.

I got some genuine touchup paint from Team McMillan for about $15 - 20 each for the paint and clearcoat. Good luck.

[edhardley 0]

The only thing that will get the job done properly (if you have alot... ie: in the hundreds of stonechips), is a respray. IMO I seriously prefer natural stone chips than freckly, half-pie looking touch up dabs all over the front end, it looks like you tried but failed, kinda like those bubling tints people DIY. It is good for some of the larger spots though.

I've had quotes from about 10 different places for resprays, all atleast $500... they must do a full frontal respray- blend, as it is a metalic colour it will never match so they won't do just one panel, they do the whole front, blending into the arches.

It's anoying how e36's are stone magnets. At the end of the day as you said unless your within 2m's and sun shining directly on the car it's impossible to see them, after a while you realise your either prepared to get a respray, or spend the money on something more worthwile.