Quality of your paint ?

[Big_Dave]

It's ok saying don't drive close to the car in front, but when I've been off roading, on tracks if you're doing 30 mph everyone leaves a minimum of 100yds gap to avoid stones and rocks coming up and mainly hitting windows. Little chippings off the road will fling a lot further so unless you're gong to drive 300 yds behind everyone it's not going to help that much!

[RickS]

It's ok saying don't drive close to the car in front, but when I've been off roading, on tracks if you're doing 30 mph everyone leaves a minimum of 100yds gap to avoid stones and rocks coming up and mainly hitting windows. Little chippings off the road will fling a lot further so unless you're gong to drive 300 yds behind everyone it's not going to help that much!

Well Big Dave, if you want to go off roading/on tracks you'll have to put up with stone chips. I was talking about normal driving on public roads.

[RickS]

Every 2010 one I have seen has had paint coverage the same as mine and I've looked at must be over 100 of them now. Also effects mk5. It just shows up more on some paint colours than others. Some show as white, some show as grey, some yellow some as spekle white, some as pink. Vw did change to improve this about a year ago (same time they changed the under bonnet paint finish)

Snoopy, I know you complained about yours from day one. I've not seen as many as you to compare, the few I've been able to examine closely were in the dealers, but I haven't seen the effects you complain about on any of them. Perhaps they let out a "bad batch" in 2010 that all ended up in the same part of the country?

[Edi35]

My ED35 has one tiny chip on the front bumper and the rest of the paint work is great. My previous CW MK6 was also great only 3 or 4 chips in 2.5 years, however my ED30 which was black (non met) was terrible. I had to have the bonnet painted before I passed it on. I put this down to the fact that the ED30 paint did not have a coat of lacquer like the CW and CG. When I look back at my previous Golfs the MK2 was great MK3 not so good, MK4 poor and MK5 the worst.

[Snoopy]

RickS Maybe, but my car came from Wayside Milton Keynes so different to the ones up here (which come in at the port of tyne) with local registrations.
I have seen 60 reg with same finish, that lad from Newcastle who always asked millions of questions on the forum who ordered the carbon grey 3 door. (also ordered a Volvo XC90 iirc) his was not as bad as mine but still suffered. Polos also had this finish. VW do seem to have improved them as the new one in the showroom last March did not have the wing finish mine does for example. Anyway ive resigned myself to VW just been a cut price brand now with mostly crap dealers. Seriously thinking of cancelling the A1 order and buying a Hyundai I20style just for the build, reliability and after sales service.

[Raffe]

It's ok saying don't drive close to the car in front, but when I've been off roading, on tracks if you're doing 30 mph everyone leaves a minimum of 100yds gap to avoid stones and rocks coming up and mainly hitting windows. Little chippings off the road will fling a lot further so unless you're gong to drive 300 yds behind everyone it's not going to help that much!

It's not a complete solution but it reduces significantly, motorways seem to be the worst for stone chipping the front of cars in my experience.

[Big_Dave]

It's ok saying don't drive close to the car in front, but when I've been off roading, on tracks if you're doing 30 mph everyone leaves a minimum of 100yds gap to avoid stones and rocks coming up and mainly hitting windows. Little chippings off the road will fling a lot further so unless you're gong to drive 300 yds behind everyone it's not going to help that much!

Well Big Dave, if you want to go off roading/on tracks you'll have to put up with stone chips. I was talking about normal driving on public roads.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't expect light damage when off roading...that advice is to stop a rock going through your windscreen.

But if you have to drive as far as I say behind a car doing 30mph to avoid a smashed windscreen, imagine how far you have to be behind the car in front to completely avoid a small stone hitting your bonnet and knocking some paint off.

For the record my Leon that has 50000 on the clock now looks like the front end has been sandblasted   

[JoeGTI]

It's ok saying don't drive close to the car in front, but when I've been off roading, on tracks if you're doing 30 mph everyone leaves a minimum of 100yds gap to avoid stones and rocks coming up and mainly hitting windows. Little chippings off the road will fling a lot further so unless you're gong to drive 300 yds behind everyone it's not going to help that much!

It's not a complete solution but it reduces significantly, motorways seem to be the worst for stone chipping the front of cars in my experience.

You would think motorways would be the "cleanest" in terms of smooth surfaces, no stones, etc? I suppose speed is a factor.... and trucks... especially the ones carrying loads of gravel!

[Mitch1987]

For the price of the car the paint should be better in my opinion,my front bumber is bad,it's gettin embarrassing,trip to the sprayers nxt month

[Ess_Three]

The paint on my Mk6 is crap, being blunt.
It's got a lovely shine...but it's paper thin, barely covered in places, and chips off if you look at it too long.
My car had 11,000 miles on it, doesn't get used for commuting, there isn't a Motorway for over 100 miles etc...so it's not getting heavy usage.

By comparison, I have a Mk3 GTI 16v that's been in my family since new, it was used as a daily commuting car for the first 5 years of it's life, has 86,000 miles on it...and it has less stonechips than the Mk6. The Mk3 is 16 years old.

Don't get me wrong...the Mk3 isn't perfect and the wings/tailgate are rusting (but so are many Mk5s!) but the paint quality is in a different league.

I am deepy disappointed with how the Mk6 paint is holding up.