I have had my new rims on the car for 10 hours and I just got 2 huge stone chips on my hood. :cuss construction vehicles on the highway throw stones every time they hit a bump, which is often around here with our :cuss highways. This morning it was unavoidable with heavy traffic and I saw 2 stones coming at me, one hit the windshield, the other danced across the hood making 2 large chips in my 6 month old paint. Does anybody have any tips to touch these up without going to a pro? I know it could be worse, but :mad :cuss :mad :banghead: :mad :cuss

 

You should also contact your local goverment and make a complaint. They are not allowed to damage your property. It is not any different then someone running into you.

 

There is a good easy method to fixing the chips without bringing the car to a shop. This is the method I use.

1. Get some touch up paint and apply thin coats to the area that is chipped. You will have to make sure you only get the paint on the chipped area, don't get it on the surrounding clear coat area. you will notice that after a few coats the paint will still be visibly lower than the good paint next to it. this is fine.

2. Get some clearcoat touch up and repeat the process above. Apply thin coats to the damaged spot(obvisouly on top of the new touch up paint you just put down). With the this step you will want to build the clear higher than the surrounding undamaged painted area.

3. After the clear has dried, I would give it a couple of days atleast you want to wet sand with mild paper(2000 or 2500 grit wet sand paper). Sand down the area of clear coat you built up and make it level with the undamaged paint.

4. Now all you have to do is compound and polish to get the wet sanding marks out of the clear.. I use a buffer with meguires anti-swirl, glaze/polish, and then a good wax.

Now your finished. If you take your time applying thin coats of paint and clear and then do the wet sand step with the appropriate compound and polishing you will find that the nicks will disappear. Just take your time and don't rush.

 

Thanks for the step by step fix Ruby. I will have to stop and get the right touch up.

As far as reporeting the damage, unfortunately I didn't think to get a description of the truck, but in 2 days I have been near trucks dropping stones. Last night I was able to avoid the stones but not this morning.