My Citigo is my third new Skoda and I noticed both my Fabia and Roomster were very bad at picking up stonechips; so was interested to see if VW building the Citigo might improve thing.

Well, the answer is no.... after 4300 miles its terrible. The bonnet has around six, the front bumper countless and even the doors. Being white they do show up, and Ive got a few of those little rust spots in the paint that the Up! owners keep on about.

Just took me 3 hours to wash and polish it, covered in tar, salt and other stuff.... should have gone for silver!

You can't really blame VAG for your soft paint, as the EU have made it nigh on impossible to use chemicals in paints the paint manufacturers are stuck with water based coatings. Good for the environment not for making paint.

Well all ok here, so far.

One thing I did expect was chips in the frontal area but can't find any. I have however had a stone fly up at the windscreen which left a very minute chip, hardly noticable, but hey we all get them.

One thing to note though, I had the Autoglym paint and interior treatment (Lifeshine) so maybe this is offering some protection.

Know what you mean about poor bodywork paint though, my previous Vauxhall was terrible at the front. everytime I washed it I noticed another lump of paint missing.

Mick

Edited 31 January, 201313 yr by MickA

The fiat is no better, as said above its modern paints.

Silver one here - washed it once in 4 months, lives outside, 3500 miles and one tiny little chip on the bumper. Best paintwork I've had for a long time and better than my 1 Series BMW.

All modern cars = water based paints.

Basically, that's it. :(

The new paint is awful, so easy to get stone chip ! I think its a conspiracy

old cars got stone chips too but the big difference with old cars was that the chip introduced tin worms that ate your car! New cars just chip, general wear and tear and not worth worrying about. IMO

The new paint is awful, so easy to get stone chip ! I think its a conspiracy

If you think Skoda paint is bad you want to go to www.civinfo.com and ask the Honda Civic owners. Their paint is probably the worst of the lot. As previously posted it's since solvents were removed from paints and they are now water based. Think how happy the 'tree huggers' are now !!

We had an accord on the company books and I have to agree the paint was dreadful, after three years use the bonnet was almost stripped of all paint on the front edge.

My Citigo is my third new Skoda and I noticed both my Fabia and Roomster were very bad at picking up stonechips; so was interested to see if VW building the Citigo might improve thing.

Well, the answer is no.... after 4300 miles its terrible. The bonnet has around six, the front bumper countless and even the doors. Being white they do show up, and Ive got a few of those little rust spots in the paint that the Up! owners keep on about.

Just took me 3 hours to wash and polish it, covered in tar, salt and other stuff.... should have gone for silver!

The rust spots you're talking about sound like contaminants bonded to the paint, not "in" the paint. We picked ours up a couple of weeks ago and when I inspected the paint I found small rust spots. I used IronX to remove these spots without any issues, and then got a good couple of layers of protection on the paint. Small orange spots are no longer there.