Road Rash Cures

How are yall taking care of the ~15 years worth of road rash? Not until recently have I taken a super close look, and boy do I've got tons of paint chips in the front end, some scratches and some dents I'm thinking of personally retouching up the paint, sending the car to a dent remover, then to a detailer. And if all goes well, have the front end of the car wrapped with xpel. I'm no expect, curious to see what yall are doing out there. How do yall think the results would be like? Any steps I'm missing that should be included? And if yall know anyone reputable in the Bay Area, do chime in

With a ton of paint chips, scratches and dents - a wrap is going to look awful, even with retouching. I'd think about a respray on the front end....wait a few months, then wrap if you want.

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John: That's what was thinking as well, that's also why I'm hoping a detail could help even out those surfaces. It's not that I haven't considered a respray, but I feel it'd be quite expensive, correct me if I'm wrong. I should have bought a clear film in the beginning....

Resprays are pricey, but if you've got enough damage that dent removal is required, it might be time. The clear film looks like crap once it gets all beat up - so depending on how much you can get the front bumper sprayed for, you may find that you're not actually saving a ton.

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If it's just the front bumper assembly, probably about $500. I have a ton o chips, too. And the paint guy at my race shop said about $400 (allow a bit for your dents).

its useless to put clear bra over a already damaged bumper, if you want to do it once, then you should repaint the bumper then put on clear bra

The front end of the car isn't dented, but it does have tons of rock chip battle scars (I'm picky as hell, so maybe I'm making it sound worse that it actually its). The dents/dings I was referring to are around the car. In other words, say if I were to touch up all the little paint chips and have it detailed and smoothed out, what do yall think? If it's around $400-500 as yall say it is, perhaps its the better route. Seems like none of yall are from the Bay Area, but would any of the forum members know of a good location in the Bay Area for a respray?

I just had my front bumper repainted. I removed the bumper and brought it to a paint shop and it came to $350 cash. It had damage from a car hitting it in a parking lot (just deep scratches)and I had the licence plate holes filled up . Did a nice job

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Lahalte: Repainted, as in sand down, prime and multiple layers of paint? Or does a respray/repaint qualify as just painting another layer over the existing coat? Interested to see what was done to yours, if it was $350, that might just be the best way to go for me as 5CHN3LL suggested.

It was sanded repaired and primed. Then repainted (how many coats i don't know)It doe not even look repainted. The color is black metallic. Very satisfied

If you have a manageable number of chips, there is a product called Langka that can be used repair them. With Langka, you basically overfill the chip with paint so there is a slight "dome", let it dry partially (usually for about 45 minutes), then use the Langka to remove the excess paint so that it is perfectly flat with the surrounding paint. I had perfect results fixing chips on nonmetallic so that you couldn't see the repair. When I tried it on metallic paint, it didn't come out great, but I might have been doing it wrong with the clear coat as a second pass. I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but I will try it on metallic again with a chip on the 996 and report back. Langka probably won't work for scratches though.

I did dr color chip on my boxster' front end. It was pretty bad originally and it did a pretty good job covering them. You still can feel them (by touch). I think my front end looks good from 2-3ft. I did not follow their direction. Filling those chips one by one will take me a couple hours of not days. I bought a foam brush from Home Depot and brushed the entire front bumper cover. Let it dry and follow the removal procedure with the provided cloth and liquid. Downside from this fix is you cannot use paste wax to wax your front end, just he spray on liquid. You still have the dimples from the chip, the paste wax will be stuck there and white wax residue will have to be removed from every chip dimple.

Stop looking at it so closely and drive the crap out of it.

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That sounds like one hell of a deal. I've just started doing research on local body shops that could potentially do the job. Again, if anyone has recommendations, do chime in. Good info! I checked it out! If the repaint falls, through then I might give Langka a try! Thanks peter Right, so similar with Langka mentioned above, I feel there's too many paint damages for me to fill up, but again if the repaint falls through I'll definitely consider this method as well. Good info, appreciate it.

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+1

europeans call a paint job; respray. (they call a trunk a boot ) alot of people are now saying respray because they dont know anything about body work, no body man has ever said respray unless he was talking about taking a car back in the booth to fix a problem, then he would say I have to respray this car

Had my front bumper and hood done earlier this year for $400, and it came out great. However, ran about 6 laps on a track one week later, and my bumper took several hits from debris, likely not helped by the soft paint. Although the hood has held up well, the bumper looked pretty dinged up, despite me touching it up (have to say I've put about 10,000 miles on since it was painted). Recently the body shop that did it (admittedly my friend's), offered to repaint the bumper for free, and I had it done a couple of weeks ago. I've been real careful since, wanting it to cure. I'm on the fence as to whether to wrap it or not. My body man is not a fan of the wraps, because he's seen what they look like when they get old, but I know the technology is improving. Since it didn't cost me much to repaint it, I'm wondering if I should bother.

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Appreciate the clarification. $400's a steal! I've called about 10 body shops in the Bay Area yesterday and the lowest quote was $800 for the front bumper! Although I really want to repaint the front end, I might just hold off until the timings right to have the car completely repainted. For the time being, I'm closely debating between Langka and Dr. Chip. Pick either one of those, have the car brought to the dent removers, then to the detailers, wrap it with xpel and call it a day.....though I really would prefer to repaint

has anyone tried this method? http://www.drcolorchip.com/store/squ...ueegee-kit.php

I had my front bumper resprayed last year, due to rock chips over the years. They sanded, primed, and painted. It was $500. I've used the Dr. Colorchip. It isn't nearly the "magic" that it looks like in their videos, and is much harder to apply than they make it look. But, overall, it does a satisfactory job.

I have 123k on mine with all the associated evidence of normal use. Car still looks new except a small amount of bolster wear and the rock chips on the nose. Doesn't bother me, I'm just gonna keep on driving it as is. I stopped sweating that stuff on my cars after surviving both cancer and pancreatitus. Somebody else can wring their hands over the rock chips after I'm gone.

I had my C4S's nose repainted this summer due to a load of paint chips and some lacquer peeling. I'm budgeting to repeat every 3 years in order to keep it looking nice. I see it in the same light as the mechanical servicing the car will get over time. You need to do it ever so often. Next time the bonnet (sorry, I'm a brit), trunk lid? will get done too. Can't be bothered with the clear bra things, far too OCD for me, it's a car, it will get chips, end of.

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I haven't tried Dr. Color Chip, so I can't really compare it with Langka, but I did watch the Dr. Color Chip video linked above: Durability : Langka uses the factory touch-up paint, so you can use any polish or wax on it after it's done. There was a prior comment that Dr. Color Chip requires special care once applied, so that would be an advantage for Langka. Ease of Application : Langka requires that you individually overfill each chip, and then individually remove the excess once it's partially dried. Dr. Color Chip looks like it's faster because you apply it everywhere and then squeegee off. I don't think the time difference is that significant because it doesn't take long to overfill each chip, it does take a little while to remove the excess on each chip, but still it is still pretty fast when you do a bunch of them at once. Advantage on time would still seem to be with Dr. Color Chip, but I don't think either process takes that long (the harder part is getting it right) Color : If you have solid non-metallic color, then Langka is perfect because you won't be able to see any repair at all if you do it right (and have exactly matching paint). For metallic, it's more difficult because factory touch-up paint doesn't really look right or glossy until you coat it with clear coat. It's tougher to get Langka right because you have to apply color, then clear coat and level off. What I am going to try with Langka is to mix 4 parts of base color with 1 part of clear coat to see if that allows it to work and look right in a single application. If Dr. Color Chip's paint wash is formulated to look right in a single application for metallic with clear coat, then it might be a better color/gloss match. Smoothness : My guess (and it's a complete guess because I haven't tried Dr. Color Chip) is that Langka will be smother because most paint I've seen contracts a bit as it dries, so the squeegee approach with Dr. Color Chip doesn't seem like it would leave the touched up areas level with surrounding surface once dried (but maybe they have formulated the paint so it works better than I am presuming). Would be interesting to hear how smooth Dr. Color Chip repaired areas are relative to the surrounding paint from someone who has used it.

I try and take an ROI approach. At about 100k miles (two years ago) I threw down a $3000 respray. Looks great. I didn't think twice about doing what would be viewed as the "appropriate" $12,500 paint job espoused by the "do it right or don't do it" crowd. You can easily spend over $1000 on the simple options and into the the $1000's on clear bras. I'm driving my car and having a good time. If it accumulates a lot more chips then fine, in ten or twelve years I'll bust out another cheap re-spray. If you get religion and decide you have to have nothing but the best you can always take it down to bare metal and paint it "right". In the meantime I'm living my life.

What color is your car? I did whole front end with Dr. Color chip on my boxster (lapis blue) and it matches the original color very well (definitely much better than porsche touch up kit). I did the front end repair and repaint on the 996 (seal grey). I also have Dr. Color chip for it too and it matches the car paint good. IMO, use langka or Dr. Color chip if you dd the car and repaint if it's a weekend car. I ended driving my 996 with bra as I don't want to ruin the just refinished front end. Guild free when I'm driving the boxster as I know it's not perfect.

Update: Appreciate all help and info. Just wanted to let yall know I'll be trying Langka out. If all is well, I'll have it detailed and Xpel covered afterwards.