I gave my black Monte Estate a wash on Saturday afternoon and couldn't believe the number of chips on the bonnet, front wing and A-Pillar. It's done 1800 miles and must have 15 noticeable chips, several of which have gone through to bare metal and others down to what appears to be the white base coat.

 

Conversely, my 55-plate 120,000 mile black Superb is in decent condition! Similarly, handed back an SLK at the end of a 2-year lease before Christmas and just a couple on the front of the bonnet. Same journeys for each car.

 

Has anyone else got similar problems?

To be honest, I've found mine quite good compared to the Ford Focus (South African build) I had before. I have had a couple of chips on the plastic front wing, which obviously aren't a rust worry, and a couple of marks on the bonnet which have gone a layer or two, but not down to metal. I have done 23,000 km, of which close to half have been on free/highways.

 

I presume you don't follow trucks etc any more closely in the Fabia than the other cars?

Iv found mine pretty good too

Are you following people far too close? Haha

Edited 3 March, 201412 yr by Otaylor38

The black roof on my Monte is shocking marks all over the place , the rest of the car is fine ( white).

hmm it's odd you mention this as i noticed some surprisingly bad chips on the bonnet of my white monte when i waxed it last weekend.

 

Similarly, the car's only just done 2000 miles, the only thing i can possibly link to it is passing a gritter or something but i've only ever seen one on the roads once since i bought it

My green VRS was peppered with tiny stone chips when it was traded in at 30K. Meanwhile my 25 year old VW polo has but two stonechips on the bonnet after 50K miles.

 

Paint quality has definitely gone downhill.

 

The black 55-plate Merc I sold a few years back had a small number of stonechips (far fewer than my VRS), and that had done 75K by the time I was finished with it.

I think since manufacturers have had to swap to environmentally friendly water based paints there's definitely a drop in resilience to stone chipping.

I think since manufacturers have had to swap to environmentally friendly water based paints there's definitely a drop in resilience to stone chipping.

That's certainly true (hence why the lead-based paint on my old Polo has withstood the test of time).

 

However I think that change took place a fair few years ago, so I can only assume that the number of layers of paint being applied (and the quality of that paint) differs from manufacturer to manufacturer.

 

None of the stone chips on my Merc went through to the metal (despite one of the stone-chips being caused by what can only be described as a rock), but a few of the ones on my VRS did. I guess it's not surprising the quality of paint on a Merc is better than a Skoda, but I would still not expect a 3-year-old Fabia to be full of holes...

I'm probably wrong but I always find paint durability to improve with age as though it hardens over a long period of time or something. I had a brand new car a few years ago and it took a battering, but after a year or so it seemed to stop, after that I bought a 2 year old car (same brand) and it took very few chips in the time I had it. My Fabia has a few but luckily the Rallye green touch up is pretty good at hiding them, it certainly isn't anywhere near as bad as other cars, probably one of the best.

Louisv6 - I've always understood Merc paintwork/bodywork to be notoriously bad. Especially for rust.

Merc ceramic paint/clearcoat is some of the hardest around, notoriously difficult to machine polish due to being so resilient.

Louisv6 - I've always understood Merc paintwork/bodywork to be notoriously bad. Especially for rust.

There was a period between about 1998 and 2003ish (from memory) where they had quality issues. This related to the quality of the steel and/or galvanization process, not the paint. That's how I understand it, but of course Mercedes themselves say very little on the subject :-)