2ndof2

I feel your pain bro but let me just share a nice little experience that I had to try and put rock chips in perspective. My car is black so chips seem to show up nicely when you get them. I decided I'd go ahead and drop somewhere north of 2 large and have the hood, front bumpers, and splitters resprayed followed by a pro-job of clear film protection. The guys from Premier came out and the results were sick!!!!

Fast forward a month or so later. I leave the car parked on a quiet side street in Santa Barbara on a Sat morning. Nobody else parked there. I'm kicking it reading some rag and sipping a cup of joe peering out a huge picture window at my shiny pride and joy sitting on the street. I get immersed in an article but just then I catch some movement outside near my car in my peripheral vision. Two young women are standing behind a BMW parked right in front of my car and are looking closely at the front bumper cover of my car. So I go outside to see whats what. The car is in the shade so although one of the girls says she thinks she sees some scratches from her friend backing into my car. I don't see any so I just say have a great day. A week later I was spraying off the car in sunlight and what did I see? About a zillion spiderweb cracks on the front bumper cover under the clear bra.

Some might say the moral to the story is always get a phone number (especially if the girls are hot) which I have to agree with in retrospect on two levels, but the real lesson here is that unless you keep your car in a museum or are extremely extremely lucky not to cross paths with some bad drivers or careless people, your car is going to see wear and tear in some shape or form. Trust me, my car pretty much only sees the light of day on weekends and a rare drive to work once or twice a month.

Don't sweat the small stuff....

Nuff

... so were they hot??

H.H.Chinn

If it really bothers you, have all of the chipped panels reshot, park the car for a month, enough time for the paint to off gas and have the thing clear wrapped.

g_murray

Yes, the 'nose' of our cars are definite 'rock chip' magnets. Reason being - the area where the badge is - IS so low. Next time stand beside a Dodge Ram or Ford F250 - and see where its hood 'starts' - it'll be by your chest! - and, chances are, there won't be a freakin' nick on it!

I personally use a Colgan 'custom' bra. It comes in TWO pieces - one for the 'trunk' - which extends up the 'trunk' -- VERY far actually - and the other piece for the front bumper and headlight/front quarter-panels. Since it's in two pieces - you don't have to disassemble anything to open the trunk / put stuff in etc. The 'quality/thickness' of the material used in these bras is astounding and the attention to detail (inasfar as 'attaching' it to your car) is refreshing. I've had mine 'on' (yes I do take it off periodically) for the last 2 years and haven't looked back. A dab of 303-aerospace protectant on it, once a year, keeps it 'new looking' and protects it from harmful UV rays.

My $0.02

Gerry

95_993

I have a Colgan bra as well....fits nice. I use it on longer road trips. I also put it on for about a month or so last summer when they decided to strip the road I commute on everyday for re-paving.

Since my car is black, it doesn't stand out.

However, like everyone else, I suffer the dreaded rock chips because I don't like the look of the bra on all the time.

timothymoffat

+1. Dark blue ain't much better.

2ndof2

Yeah, but the girl I was dating at the time was hotter....and better at parking too!

daltvater

Mines in the shop for this reason right now. Wait for snow and tailgate a DOT truck.

fullbooker

I recently refinished my front bumper cover and used Armor Coat as the clear coat over the color. So far no rock chips, but time will tell. You may want to consider it when you repaint your bumper cover.
Phil

murfysflaw

I have many rock chips on my red cab. I used Dr. Colorchip and it did hide most of them pretty well. There are some deep ones that it won't cover completely, but overall it worked well.

logan2z

Good to know. I'm going to order some and give it a shot.

bluejam

Don't cover the existing chips. Respray, then clearbra.
Wish I had the dough to do my freckled black baby!

flatspin

Didn't notice if anyone mentioned these guys. I've tried this stuff on my S2000 (Red), the 964 (Black), and the Boxster (Brugundy); it works as advertised. You can hardly see the chips after you're done. Gave a couple of kits to friends for Xmas. Not affiliated, yadda, yadda.

http://www.langka.com/

Check out the site's video of the process, very interesting.

http://www.langka.com/photos.php

p.s. If you buy the touchup kit from Porsche you need to apply the base coat in a thin layer then use the Langka kit with the clear coat (I've found that method works best). Also, some types of older paints (pre-1990) are incompatible.

95_993

+1 on Dr. Colorchip. I used it with success on my Silver Audi and Black 993.

NP993

My black 993 (with close to 100K on it) has so many paint imperfections and stone chips that at some point soon I'm going to have to get the entire car resprayed. When that happens, I'll do the full clearbra treatment.

The problem with spraying just the nose of a higher-mileage car like mine is that instead of making the front look great, you make the rest of the car look aged and beaten up in comparison. So you really can't do just a part of the car -- you have to do the whole thing.