What have you done to your MK 7 today ?

[Popinman]

...plus attending to the few stone chips.

Sounds good, love a good car cleaning session  I've only had my Mk7 for a few weeks and was amazed at the number of stone chips on the bonnet. Not so bad on the bumper (plastic) but for a German car that's supposed to have "hard paint" the number of stone chips is crazy!

[SRGTD]

That sounds like a good day’s effort @Watts. You can’t beat a good clean and shiny car. I’ll be doing mine next week as the weather’s looking like being better than it is just now.

I've only had my Mk7 for a few weeks and was amazed at the number of stone chips on the bonnet. Not so bad on the bumper (plastic) but for a German car that's supposed to have "hard paint" the number of stone chips is crazy!

I’ve read that hard paint is more susceptible to stone chips than softer paints as it doesn’t ‘flex’ or ‘give’ when a stone hits it, so the outcome will usually be a stone chip. Also, modern water based paints aren’t as resilient to stone chip damage as the previously used solvent based paints were.

Stone chips are an unfortunate inevitable consequence of owning and driving a car. Repairing then is part of my regular car washing routine - any new ones I spot when I’ve washed my car get attended to there and then.

[Watts]

Cheers Popinman and SR I'm pleased that I'm finally getting the car in the condition I wanted, it looks so much better with a nice gloss to it but I'm finding it to be not as rewarding as cleaning my old TR car, that was glowing when clean. Mind you it's been a pretty dull day, perhaps with better light the pearl in the Oryx paint would really stand out.

That's interesting about hard paint chipping easier SR, my old car was absolutely covered in them. But my Audi from 2003 hardly had any even after 12 years! Very odd.

What's your routine for fixing stone chips? Do you sand them down after paint and DA them?

[clarky92]

Cheers Popinman and SR I'm pleased that I'm finally getting the car in the condition I wanted, it looks so much better with a nice gloss to it but I'm finding it to be not as rewarding as cleaning my old TR car, that was glowing when clean. Mind you it's been a pretty dull day, perhaps with better light the pearl in the Oryx paint would really stand out.

That's interesting about hard paint chipping easier SR, my old car was absolutely covered in them. But my Audi from 2003 hardly had any even after 12 years! Very odd.

What's your routine for fixing stone chips? Do you sand them down after paint and DA them?

Funny this topic has come up, I touched in some stone chips today. I have 12 on the front bumper/ bonnet. Only done 10k, the paint is as soft as butter!

I’m usually quite good with stone chips but managed to ‘over so’ some of them to the point they look quite blobby. I’m planning on using some langka blob eliminator to level them down, and a quick hand polish with meguairs ultimate to being the shine back afterwards.

I wish I owned a DA and had the skill to wet sand, that’s the only way to achieve as close to perfect stone chip repairs as possible.

[Watts]

Funny this topic has come up, I touched in some stone chips today. I have 12 on the front bumper/ bonnet. Only done 10k, the paint is as soft as butter!

I’m usually quite good with stone chips but managed to ‘over so’ some of them to the point they look quite blobby. I’m planning on using some langka blob eliminator to level them down, and a quick hand polish with meguairs ultimate to being the shine back afterwards.

I had to Google blob eliminator! I must get myself some touch up paint soon, there's not too many chips yet but best keep on top of them!

[monkeyhanger]

^^ The paint isn't overly soft, it's overly thin. I've been shocked at the lack of depth of paint chips down to the primer. Solid colours are worse for this, they're far more opaque so it seems that VW put much less paint on. The semi- translucent metallics need a thicker coat for depth of colour. I've fixed a few bonnet chips on my A4's "Manhattan grey" metallic paintwork almost perfectly, but the Polo GTI's flash red was impossible to get level because the chips were so shallow.

One thing to note though with these touch up paints - the colour coat shrinks back quickly as it dries out. When you put a blob of the clear lacquer on, leave it a week. It's solvent based, not water based and shrinks back a lot over the course of a week. It's tempting to sand it flat on day 2 or 3, but it's still thinning out. Leave it the full week.

[SRGTD]

What's your routine for fixing stone chips? Do you sand them down after paint and DA them?

No, I’m not brave enough to wet sand my paintwork repairs - IMO wet sanding isn’t for the faint hearted! I have a Chipex kit which does a pretty good job, but it takes a little practice to get decent results. The beauty of the Chipex kit is that if you’re not happy with your efforts, you can remove them with the supplied blending solution and start again. There’s also a Dr Colourchip kit which is pretty much the same as the Chipex kit. They’re not cheap, but as said, you can remove the paint you’ve applied if you’re not happy with your repairs and start again.

There are videos on both the Chipex and Dr Colourchip websites and on YouTube showing how to use the kits. I don’t use the ‘finger spread’ method to apply the paint - I fill the stone chip with paint using the end of a cocktail stick until the level of the new paint is just above the surrounding paint. I then level it using the supplied blending solution, applied to the cloth wrapped around the sponge block (both supplied). It’s important to let the blending solution do the work and not rub too hard, otherwise you’ll remove the paint you’ve just applied.

Funny this topic has come up, I touched in some stone chips today. I have 12 on the front bumper/ bonnet. Only done 10k, the paint is as soft as butter!

I’m usually quite good with stone chips but managed to ‘over so’ some of them to the point they look quite blobby. I’m planning on using some langka blob eliminator to level them down, and a quick hand polish with meguairs ultimate to being the shine back afterwards.

I wish I owned a DA and had the skill to wet sand, that’s the only way to achieve as close to perfect stone chip repairs as possible.

I don’t wet sand my stone chip repairs. A guy over on Seatcupra.net has just wet sanded through the clear coat on his Leon’s bonnet when he was repairing some stone chips. He’s now faced with a bonnet respray. The only positive to come out of that is the bonnet will now be blemish free.

I’m not keen on the VW touch up pens as the paint does seem to go thick and blobby quite quickly, which makes it difficult to apply - and I’m not brave enough to attempt wet sanding!

[clarky92]

What's your routine for fixing stone chips? Do you sand them down after paint and DA them?

No, I’m not brave enough to wet sand my paintwork repairs - IMO wet sanding isn’t for the faint hearted! I have a Chipex kit which does a pretty good job, but it takes a little practice to get decent results. The beauty of the Chipex kit is that if you’re not happy with your efforts, you can remove them with the supplied blending solution and start again. There’s also a Dr Colourchip kit which is pretty much the same as the Chipex kit. They’re not cheap, but as said, you can remove the paint you’ve applied if you’re not happy with your repairs and start again.

There are videos on both the Chipex and Dr Colourchip websites and on YouTube showing how to use the kits. I don’t use the ‘finger spread’ method to apply the paint - I fill the stone chip with paint using the end of a cocktail stick until the level of the new paint is just above the surrounding paint. I then level it using the supplied blending solution, applied to the cloth wrapped around the sponge block (both supplied). It’s important to let the blending solution do the work and not rub too hard, otherwise you’ll remove the paint you’ve just applied.

Funny this topic has come up, I touched in some stone chips today. I have 12 on the front bumper/ bonnet. Only done 10k, the paint is as soft as butter!

I’m usually quite good with stone chips but managed to ‘over so’ some of them to the point they look quite blobby. I’m planning on using some langka blob eliminator to level them down, and a quick hand polish with meguairs ultimate to being the shine back afterwards.

I wish I owned a DA and had the skill to wet sand, that’s the only way to achieve as close to perfect stone chip repairs as possible.

I don’t wet sand my stone chip repairs. A guy over on Seatcupra.net has just wet sanded through the clear coat on his Leon’s bonnet when he was repairing some stone chips. He’s now faced with a bonnet respray. The only positive to come out of that is the bonnet will now be blemish free.

I’m not keen on the VW touch up pens as the paint does seem to go thick and blobby quite quickly, which makes it difficult to apply - and I’m not brave enough to attempt wet sanding!

Wow that’s some mistake, exactly why sanding should only be left for the pro’s

I’ve left my ‘blobs’ to cure for 2 weeks now so I’m hoping this langka stuff will do the trick. Reading lots of good stuff about it on forums

[king monkey]

The cheap eBay touch up stick I bought a few months ago hasn’t seemed as blobby as Vw paint.

It makes me feel better than everyone else complains about the quality of the paint. Lapiz is so so soft. 

[Watts]

One thing to note though with these touch up paints - the colour coat shrinks back quickly as it dries out. When you put a blob of the clear lacquer on, leave it a week. It's solvent based, not water based and shrinks back a lot over the course of a week. It's tempting to sand it flat on day 2 or 3, but it's still thinning out. Leave it the full week.

That's a good tip, thanks