Stone Chips: What's the options?

[Bluethunder]

Hi All,

I recently tried to touch up some stone chips on my bonnet and front bumper but it's made the affected areas more noticeable!

My car is Azure blue so it's a very tricky colour to match... So the question is, would sending it to a specialist for detailing and ceramic coating help to hide the existing stone chips or is ceramic coating just to protect the paint from further(small) stone chips?

A respray would be a bit drastic and worried about the colour match...

[wendle]

Depending on were about's it is on the bumper you may be able to get a smart repair done £150 ish.

as for the bonnet there is not a lot you can do other than a full respray, most, if not all smart repair companies won't undertake a smart repair on a bonnet or any other large area, and a ceramic coating won't hide the stone chip, in fact ceramic coating is not designed to stop stone chips, other than Paint protection film, nothing will stop a stone traveling at 100mph from a car or lorry in front of you chipping your paint. 

 

[RichGS11]

I'd look into paint protection film to prevent stone chips. Ceramics work on softer items such as tree sap, bird poo, etc. Ceramic is a great product but not the wonder product some advertise it as. 

[NemesisUK]

Any 5 layer paint such as the Azure Blue will be virtually impossible to touch up. I had a stone chip on the leading edge of the bonnet on my Sonic Red RC300h and was quoted £1200 to respray the complete bonnet. I just left it...

That bonnet was ceramic coated and as posted above, ceramics do not protect against stone chips or scratches. Great for quick cleaning and look great for a long time but there's no physical protection.

Stone chips are a fact of driving life unfortunately...

[Bluethunder]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Looks like I will just have to put up with the stone chips for now but will consider a respray of the bumper followed by ppf.

 

[Legendliving]

Don’t know if you’re interested in a temporary cosmetic fix, but I owned a blue RCF until recently with 68,000 on the clock mainly from Motorway driving so plenty of rash on the front. Turtle wax do a colour magic polish with colour infused. I found the blue worked well to hide small white spots on the front and with larger spots a drop of the polish on the spot left to dry wasn’t perfect but better than rocking the speckled look. I wouldn’t use a product like that all over, I did get through loads of Maguires Ultimate Liquid wax for the rest of the car. The depth of the RCF blue is very special and was always the first thing about the car that drew comments.

[BillNick]

I have one particularly bad stone chip on my bonnet which I am nervous to have repaired owing to colour match.

So, I thought I would enquire at Lexus themselves hoping they use someone that has at least painted our colour before (8X1) as well as some form of guarantee if I am not happy.

For bonnet, bumper and wing blend I was quoted £1950 + VAT.

I have sent the code to a bodyshop I have always used and trusted in the past, they crash repair prestige cars etc. He is doing some research into the paint process and going to do some practice boards for me to see before offering me an estimate for the work.

The Azure Blue is the most eye catching colour out there, but as with 'all things nice'...........it comes with a price.

[Womble72]

I’ve recently had my front end painted, both wings, bonnet and bumper, car is pearlescent Mesa red, cost was £700 and you wouldn’t notice it had been painted, just had a H10 5yr ceramic coating applied, (paint depth was the within a couple of points all over and that’s after the repaint) cost was £650, paint film protection I was quoted £3500 for 😳……..a good painter will match the paint!……… it really is that simple, hope the above helps 

[Womble72]

[F.A.]

I can’t recommend PPF highly enough. I paid around £1800 for the front bumper, headlights, badge wings and wing mirrors to be protected with PPF on our GSF, a year ago from Topaz and it still looks like new. So far any blemishes from bird poo etc has been removed with a bit of heat. 
 

I would be very wary of using the local Lexus body shop without seeing their work. I’ve had two Arctic Pearl cars painted by the Bristol ‘approved centre’ via Bristol Lexus and the match wasn’t very good at all. Our IS had the bonnet resprayed and the wings blended, and the blend wasn’t good. I sent it back but there wasn’t much improvement. 

I had the front bumper resprayed and the carbon trim re lacquered on our GSF (5 layer Sonic Titanium) by Topaz’s approved body shop, before the PPF was placed  and the match was perfect. 

So I would find a good body shop and not  assume that Lexus would necessarily be a good place for a respray. 

[Womble72]

1 minute ago, F.A. said:

I can’t recommend PPF highly enough. I paid around £1800 for the front bumper, headlights, badge wings and wing mirrors to be protected with PPF on our GSF, a year ago from Topaz and it still looks like new. So far any blemishes from bird poo etc has been removed with a bit of heat. 
 

I would be very wary of using the local Lexus body shop without seeing their work. I’ve had two Arctic Pearl cars painted by the Bristol ‘approved centre’ via Bristol Lexus and the match wasn’t very good at all. Our IS had the bonnet resprayed and the wings blended, and the blend wasn’t good. I sent it back but there wasn’t much improvement. 

I had the front bumper resprayed and the carbon trim re lacquered on our GSF (5 layer Sonic Titanium) by Topaz’s approved body shop, before the PPF was placed  and the match was perfect. 

So I would find a good body shop and not  assume that Lexus would necessarily be a good place for a respray. 

The quote I had was for the complete car, tbh I didn’t know enough about it so did ask for front end, once I’ve seen it in the flesh I would consider it to protect from chips.

[Northern isf]

Almost impossible to match a bumper to the rest of the cars OEM paint 100% perfectly a good sprayer would insist on blending into the wings. 

[BillNick]

I think if I had bought my RCF new, I would have invested in front end PPF for sure and might get it put on if I have it sprayed.