Bought a second hand car and after a good wash you can see a number of stone chips in the paintwork. Assume the person we bought it off used some coloured wax or something to cover them which came off during the wash.
What is the best way of sorting these out properly? They are very small round chips which look white / grey at the bottom and if you run you fingers over them you can feel the "hole".
Was thinking of trying some t cut first as they are so small not sure how paint with work as assume will then also be on top of the lacquer surrounding the chip?
Same, I was well pissed off! Bought a car fairly recently, 4 years old, the most i've ever spent on one (16k) cos i'm not mega fancy but as the weeks passed I noticed rust spots appearing around the windscreen. They weren't evident when I bought it, I would have 100% noticed*.
I'm particularly aggravated because I have had dozens of cars since I started driving 30 years ago but I have not had one with rust on since I was an impoverished twenty-something.
Anyway the missus caused it some damage (she genuinely does this to every car we buy shortly after procuring it) and it went into the body shop**, he repaired her damage to a good standard but per the stone chips he picked out the rust with a scalpel and used a touch up pen stating that it would cost a fair amount of money to fix, would probably not be an issue for years to come and obviously there's no guarantee of future chips.
You can't avoid wear and tear, I've stopped noticing them. And f*ck it, it's highly unlikely to be my last car but I will be more vigilant next time.
Depending on the finish you want etc, either a touch up pot or local spray paint with a can if bad.
You can hide chips with a matching touch up pot, if you are careful. Don’t use too much, try to just fill the hole, leave at least a week, then, a gentle T-cut if needed to blend.
T-cut is really only for very minor blemishes that you can't feel. For small chips, with undercoat visible at the bottom, I have always found touch up paint, available from Halfords, work very well. They even do a video telling you how to deal with various types of damage. From what you say, I think you want to follow the second set of instructions:
Pop round to the dealer and get a proper matching touch up set which will have base colour and top lacquer finish. Slowly build up the chip with the base coat and when its level with rest of car finish off with the lacquer. Dont use a spray just the paintbrush type touch up sets. Takes patience to get enough of the base coat up to level but once its done you end up with a good finish.
I would imagine many people tend to disguise or protect their damaged bits against further damage and to make it better for themselves. It would have been nice to have known this, but I suspect like most things people think everyone does it. The worst car my father had was an Austin that had a small leak somewhere around the windscreen. Nobody seemed able to find it. In the end some coloured wax around the seal at least stopped it as the water was repelled. I have a feeling that no matter how the glass is bonded to the bodywork, be it in a rubber gasket as on older cars, or directly as on new ones, sooner or later a weak point shows up. Brian
I've used similar on a Toyota - I think they called it Pearl or Mica or something like that. If you want perfection its a full panel respray but it you want something that is good then try my suggestion.
Try wetting them, if you can still see them that means the scratch has gone through the lacquer and the paint. T-cut will only work if the scratch only goes through the lacquer.
If the scratch has gone all the way through you are SOL. Depending on how good you want the car to look choices vary from a wee touch up to each chip (then T-cut) all the way to a full re-spray
You can fix that. If the frame underneath the windshield glass is rusted, you can't leave it like that. Any raised spots have to be ground off, primed and repainted. After the paint is dry, you can put down the adhesive and re-bed the windshield on it. The windshield is supposed to rest on the adhesive, as it allows some thermal expansion without tearing. The job is not done right, if a raised rust point touches the windshield. For that will lead to immediate failure (within the first year or so). I have experience :-/
The bead of adhesive is thick enough, they can fit a wire between the windshield and the frame, to cut away the windshield during repair. The "gap" has to be big enough, to fit the wire. And so the thickness of the adhesive is significant and that's how there is enough slop for thermal expansion. You don't "squash" the windshield into the bead, just lay it on top, to maintain the thickness needed so the bead has some compliance to the glass.
When they cut the old windshield away, the old adhesive stays on the frame (normally). You put a new bead on top of it, and slap on the new glass. Most franchise windshield shops, simply ignore frame damage (rust) and just slap new glass in there, and don't tell you the frame is rusted.
There are some things they don't tell you about your car. The roof has gutters, for draining water from the roof. The water from the gutter, flows down the inside of the windshield pillar. The pillar is to either side of the windshield frame area. After about 20 years, you can have enough rust inside the pillar, that water will attack other things in the vicinity.
The first rust spot appeared and I thought 'how did I miss that', then developed so quickly then ceased similarly that I assume they used something akin to a wax crayon, it was plainly a disguise job rather than any attempt at repair.
They appear stable now they've been treated. Alternative was windscreen out and full respray of the roof, and that came with no cast iron guarantee. And it would have cost a small fortune.
I otherwise love the car and day to day I forget about it.
Didn't realise either until we'd had it while, in the right light the windscreen looks like it has been shotblasted. It's full of tiny pits.
I'd love to know what abuse it has suffered! The bumper and bonnet must have had a respray given it's other issues. It was the right money though and I love it so, no real regrets.
I'd find that wax to ward off rust... stone chips are a way of life for motorway driving, and the only true solution which looks daft is some kind of bonnet blanket, trendy with some SUV owners. The alternative is like repainting the Forth Bridge.
Some time back I bought a second had car from a dealer, paint work looked immaculate and today it still does reaching a high level of gloss shine when hand washed by me (religious two bucket method). I remember doing a good visual on the paintwork when it was delivered - and have only recently discovered the dealer had attached a neatly cut paint sticker to hide a scratch on the cill/sill.
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I'm OK with it now, but had I found it then would I have rejected the car?
Hmmm, now that I think about it, the car needs another wash.
I can't help but think that leaving a centimeter of exposed bodywork above the windscreen is a poor idea and could be sorted with a bit of discrete trim of some sort.
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