Other day was out washing my RS, and accidentally did some damage to both sideskirts. Specifically I am talking about the part of the sideskirt which curves under the car and sticks out and is painted over. A sort of lip

that sticks out a couple of inches. You can only see this lip when you stand back 4 or 5 feet. Most of the time it's dirty anyway and the only way to

clean it was with a strong jet. But after cleaning it, it looks like the jet from the hose was too strong and took the red paint off in tiny patches.

Left little white holes, which feels like a kind of rubbery material - some sort

of protective sealant I presume. In places it was sort of hanging off a bit as well. Anyway, I touched them up or rather filled in over the white marks with the body coloured touchup paint. Not that noticeable, but doesn't look great up close. Very patchy. Probably have to go back over them again.

My question is whether this is purely cosmetic, or do I need my skirts removed, sanded down and resprayed ? Hope not. Car in dealer next week for service, so they will take a look.

thx

octys dont have skirst even on the vrs.

the front of the sills often collapses it must be an orig vw design.

That wasn't much help.

Ok maybe they are not skirts, sills then, but you surely know what I'm on about !

I'm talking about the lip under the 'sill'. that you can see from a distance.

Sounds like you have just blasted a bit of paint off of your sills.

As you have noticed they have a good layer of stone chip - so I wouldn't be worried.

Thanks.

I reckon the paint came off so easy cause under it there is a sort of soft spongy type of sealant, which doesn't hold the paint as well as a primer. I was able to go over the white holes with touch up paint. I will probably go over it again to see if I can make it a bit tidier.

It may just be the inside body panel wax that they squirt around the joints prior to painting which is then painted over where it weeps out.Have had it on all VW group cars so far.

inside body panel wax ...weeps out.

This is even mentioned in the handbook.

(sorry for the brutal paraphrasing )

I had a kwik fit monkey jack up the car on the lip, and pushed it flat, They paid for it to be repaired at a garage of my choice, looks fine now but it took 3 days for the underseal gloop to dry before they could paint over it, so in answer to your question, don't worry the undersill stuff seems to stay semi elastic, so the paint might not stick properly

My question is whether this is purely cosmetic, or do I need my skirts removed, sanded down and resprayed ? Hope not. Car in dealer next week for service, so they will take a look.

purely superficial flanno, don't worry about it, just leave it dirty from now on :P

Thanks for all the great advice.

The garage will take a look on Monday anyway, but I'm glad it sounds like its nothing to be worried about.

I think you are right about this underseal stuff though. It's so elastic, I'm surprised they even managed to paint over it. Yesterday I went back over it with the touchup paint. Where the paint had sunk into the holes I filled, I just added more paint. Friend has the same problem, but the paint came off from stone chips, as opposed to self inflicted with a power hose. He did the same thing. Just touched it up.

I had a kwik fit monkey jack up the car on the lip, and pushed it flat,

The muppets who fixed my alloys did the same. Funny thing is he denied it, when he was doing another job on them I was able to catch it jacked in the wrong spot.

Well I dropped the car in this morning for a service. Only 11k on her after nearly 2 years, but getting the 2year/20k service done on her. 170 euros. Ouch.

They said they would look at the sills. If it's just cosmetic I will leave it. If not, they will send it for respray.