Hi all,

I washed the car today (applause) since its been a couple of months & cannot believe the amount of stone chips all over the bonnet & wings & headlight areas!

I have done around 32k miles from new within the past 18months & most have been on the motorway but have been pretty careful in respect of distance to the cars in front etc... mainly because its my first newly owned car & wanted to look after it.

The paint is dreadful & as soft as shyte - the only thing I can think of is a total re-spray of the front end when it comes to selling it in a year or so - there's just too many stone chips to touch up - well to make a decent job of it anyway.

I am just happy that the Scout has a little plastic cladding around the lower front-end otherwise this would look even worse.

Anyone else found this on theirs?

W.

My Black magic L&K has done 73k and the bonnet looks like its been peppered by a minigun. Chipped black paint is the worst as any wax/polish shows up in the chips.

At least 75% of those miles are of the motorway variety and I don't tailgate either.

Maybe the water based paints used today aren't as resiliant as the old solvent stuff?

Definitely down to water-based paints. It's not just Skodas that are like this. That said, any paint will chip if it gets hit hard enough - all you can do is keep your distance and touch up regularly if it bothers you. My car's black as well so I guess this wasn't a wise choice other than I shouldn't have to look too hard to find them when touching up!!

Get your new cars laminated with those 3M stone guard films. They are clear, almost invisible and don't fade/get milky/yellow in time.

Don't have that on this one, but the next one is surely getting it.

A friends Honda Accord that has done over 100k motorway miles has half the amount of chips (& he has no patience if you know what I mean), the paint work looks much thicker & better quality - Is this a VAG thing?

A friends Honda Accord that has done over 100k motorway miles has half the amount of chips (& he has no patience if you know what I mean), the paint work looks much thicker & better quality - Is this a VAG thing?

Don't know the paint on my Honda Civic Type R was very chippable.

i've not had stone chips, however i believe the paint to be soft also as the number of scratches (which polish out with t-cut) is high; and i thought vauxhalls (my previous two cars) had inadequate paintwork!

Honda black paint is notoriously soft and thin, according to a couple of the valeters around here...

wouldn't surprise me at all if it was a universal problem though.

I've been of the understanding that the problem with the paint was that it is hard and therefore brittle and prone to stone chips and not soft as the OP suggests ................... could be wrong though :confused:

Isnt it all down to been water based paint these days?

Steve

I've been of the understanding that the problem with the paint was that it is hard and therefore brittle and prone to stone chips and not soft as the OP suggests ................... could be wrong though :confused:

I've heard similar from various sources that the water based paints are by comparison rock hard and so chip more easily.

Agreed with Makefish and Cheezmonkhai; the problem is that acrylic car paints are very hard, and that's why they chip easily.