Dealership touch up paint. Your thoughts

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goldenlight

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I have rock chips on my front bumper and hood. Im thinking of buying touch up paint from the dealership.


Just wondering if this worth getting or am I better off taking my car to a professional body shop. My car is about 2 yrs old. Most these chip come from the interstate
 
I would personally look into Dr. Colorchip Or the Langka products

Body shop is going to be COSTLY! and you will be on the interstate again, right?
 
tomsteve said:
I have had good results with products from here:
Touch Up Paint and Accessories | AutomotiveTouchup

prepwork is very important.

if taken to a bodyshop...well...I don't know if any would just touch up the chips. they would repaint the bumber and hood, which would be quite costly.
Click to expand...

I've taken my old car to a body shop to get a quote on sanding and repainting an area on the bumper. The reason for the problem was due to the hatch hitting the bumper a little because it was misaligned. Removing the bumper, sanding, repainting, and all that only came out to be 1300 (from a well respected shop in North ATL). I asked him what about just sanding and repainting them spot and he told me it would be a lot cheaper to just buy the paint from places like paintscratch/automotivetouchup and do it myself (never did because it would have just happened again anyway).

The labor cost was much more than the paint cost though. Maybe if I had a garage to protect it from the elements I would have.
 
I was at a huge dealership here in Los Angeles and I saw a guy airbrushing several cars.
He has a tank of nitrogen and several airbrush guns. Plus a huge number of tiny bottles of paint in every color you can imagine.
He would match the colors, clean and prep the spots needing touch up and go to work with the airbrush. He was so good at it that after feathering in and blending the color you could not tell where he stopped and the factory color started.
Then he would mix a two part clear and spray several light coats on and let it dry while doing the next car.
Then when it was completely dry he would wet sand and polish. After he was done it was nearly impossible to tell that he had done any work. And from start to finish was right around 45 minutes of actual work. Not counting drying time (during which he was at work on another car).
I asked him what he would charge for doing a single vehicle and he said it was totally dependent on the time involved.
But for what he did at dealers lots and detailers shops he was right at an average of $125.00 per vehicle.
 
oldmodman said:
I was at a huge dealership here in Los Angeles and I saw a guy airbrushing several cars.
He has a tank of nitrogen and several airbrush guns. Plus a huge number of tiny bottles of paint in every color you can imagine.
He would match the colors, clean and prep the spots needing touch up and go to work with the airbrush. He was so good at it that after feathering in and blending the color you could not tell where he stopped and the factory color started.
Then he would mix a two part clear and spray several light coats on and let it dry while doing the next car.
Then when it was completely dry he would wet sand and polish. After he was done it was nearly impossible to tell that he had done any work. And from start to finish was right around 45 minutes of actual work. Not counting drying time (during which he was at work on another car).
I asked him what he would charge for doing a single vehicle and he said it was totally dependent on the time involved.
But for what he did at dealers lots and detailers shops he was right at an average of $125.00 per vehicle.
Click to expand...


Btw- for the previous post: that's nuts! I just got a quote to re-shoot my whole Camry bumper (black metallic) and it was "$250-400".

Back to this. I am getting ready to do the same thing. You just have to be creative. Pint of paint and quart of reducer was $35.

All the "gimmick" tools are around for prep. Chop sticks from Chinese restaurant; pencils with erasers and a paper punch to make small sanding tips; pink flat erasers for holding wet sand paper for small areas. A packet of airbrush frisket for masking small if needed. Beading needles from Joanns or Wally World.

Prep-Sol on a t-shirt piece with the chop stick to get in the chip. IPA after that. A touch of adhesion promoter on a needle to get it in there; same for dabs of primer.

Airbrush about 1/4 to 1/2" of base; 1/2-3/4" of clear. Keep reducing clear and expand to blend. However, if it's silver I wouldn't touch it.

Tedious work though.
 
I have used Dr. Colorchip on many cars with much success.
 
So if you already have a bottle of touch up paint, what are the steps to repair the chip/scratch? Cant you just polish to smooth out if needed, paint, let dry, repolish to smooth, then wait how to apply wax, sealant, or coating?
 
BlackRam said:
So if you already have a bottle of touch up paint, what are the steps to repair the chip/scratch? Cant you just polish to smooth out if needed, paint, let dry, repolish to smooth, then wait how to apply wax, sealant, or coating?
Click to expand...

I don't have time to look right now, but there are several good how to videos on youtube.
 
BlackRam said:
So if you already have a bottle of touch up paint, what are the steps to repair the chip/scratch? Cant you just polish to smooth out if needed, paint, let dry, repolish to smooth, then wait how to apply wax, sealant, or coating?
Click to expand...

What you missed is cleaning the polish OUT of the depression needing repair. The polish PROBABLY left behind something that will lower or stop the paint from bonding; or, retard it's cure.

At minimum, I would use IPA a couple of times.
 
Personally I don't like touch up paint. I think the result looks crappy and it a paint to use. It has it's purpose for temporary protection but I think that putting a lot of effort into using this is a waste of time.

I was watching a video Larry did for Ammo and he works on a deep long scratch that goes over 3 pannels of the car. In the time it takes him to work and rework the touch up paint he could have sanded to metal, primed, painted and clearcoated. This year I plan to learn to be able to do just that. My major issue is to get the proper gear for a paintgun. But for painting small areas I believe a small compressor can do a good job.
 
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