sojourner

I will do my best to keep this short. On Wednesday, I find myself behind a dumptruck at a stop light. When it turns green, truck begins pulling away, and I notice gravel falling out of the tailgate area. I mean, ALOT of gravel. I back off as far as I can without getting run over, with my front end getting peppered. When the lane to the right opens up, I accelerate to pass and you guessed it, the truck moves in front of me. I immidiately call the local gravel company letting them know that thier truck is killing my car. He says check for damage and let me know what you find. I go home (about 1 mile) and give it a quick rinse to get a clear view. I just washed the car two days previous and saw no damge, and now I've got like 20-30 good rock chips in the paint and bumper. The worst part is, it nailed the drivers side oil cooler. So I head down to the gravel company, speak with the manger and he agrees that his truck did drop some gravel, the chips are his responsibility, but not the oil cooler as the ding is too big to be from the gravel that the truck was carrying. There is an obvious chip in the bumper 1 inch below the oil cooler damage. He still refuses. So I leave to the State Patrol, file a report and get an incident #, and call my insurance to alert them of the problem. Now, Thursday I go back by to give the guy a chance to own up, but he still denies responsibility for the oil cooler. I tell him that I will just have to follow up on the police report and insurance claim. Then he asks for the estimate I got from my dealer that I got on Wednesday. Are you ready? $2223.50!!! I thought he was going to drop a brick! He is just shaking his head and kind of grumbling. "I will be right back" he says. 10 minutes pass, he comes walking back in and says, "we will cover everything. Just take it to the dealer and have them send us the invoice." So, my beautiful Shinka is heading into the shop on the 7th to get everything repaired.
Here is my repaint question; I trust the body guys, and they said rather than get a new bumper and paint it, there is a local guy who does airbrush for rock chips with factory paint supplied by the dealer, and it is hardly noticeable. They said that a new bumper will not look quite the same, and won't have the same longevity of a factory painted piece. And the touch-up work on the hood could be more noticeable if they do it traditionally. What is everybody's thoughts?

Sorry for the novel... appreciate the help. M

otherside

Airbrush will never be like factory paint. They cant re-do the clearcoat. If the bodyshop is good, the repaint will be fine. Im assuming the estimate you got is for repaint?

sojourner

Yes, the estimate is for repaint. Also, the dealer shop said they would clearcoat the airbrushed areas.

otherside

Dont do the airbrush! It is great for touching up small areas, but not for the damage you have (several chips etc...).

New Yorker

Sounds like you dealt with the gravel company very well—your thoroughness (police report, washing the car, etc.) really paid off—good for you.

I once had a small gouge on the rear bumper of my '02 VW GTI. I took it to the best body shop I could find (went online to various car forums like vwvortex, audiworld, etc to find local suggestions) and they urged me to let them repair the existing bumper. I wanted a brand new one. They said they could do that, but it would cost more and, more importantly, they assured me the repair to the existing bumper would be perfect and I wouldn't be able to tell anything had ever happened. So I followed their advice and… they were right. They filled in the gouge, repainted and "blended" the surrounding area a little and it was absolutely perfect.

So my advice would be to take it to the best body shop you can find (which is usually NOT the dealer's body shop, unless you have a Ferrari or Porsche or something) and do whatever they suggest for your particular problem.

Good luck!

Mazdaspeed RX8 ver2

spigot52

DONT do the airbrush!.....I've had it done ($100 cdn for every chip he could find)....its excellent for hiding the small ones until I can afford to have the front painted properly.....they cant match the paint as well as a proper paint job....check out your local 'hot-rod' guys they always know the best body/paint shops.

BunnyGirl

Skip airbrusing. That only works if you have a few tiny ones, basically. A lady I work with has a Jetta and all the paint is peeling off the front of the car around the grill and headlights. She got the peeled off areas airbrushed over. It looks like crap because they are large areas and they look more pink than red even though it is the factory paint they put on. She took it to another body shop and said is the white base showing through the red, which is why it looks pink. You can also see all the edges around the parts that were peeling. Meanwhile, more of the paint (not the airbrushing) is peeling off the front end again as well as starting to bubble on other parts of the car now. Great paint quality on an 03 Jetta GLI!

She said she went with the airbrushing because it only cost $150 and her deductible was $350 to have it all done (insurance said they would pay for it) and repainted at the body shop and she didn't want to pay any extra money. She is now rethinking that and considering getting the car totally repainted. Volkswagen won't fix it even though she is the original owner and hasn't had any accidents or work done to her car, it just started peeling about five months after got the car, or at least was becoming noticeable at that time, she said. Now she has just taken to smearing touch-up paint on the new peeling areas (looks terrible). Meanwhile, her bottle of touch-up paint is smaller than ours and it costs $12.50!!!

kartweb

As many others have said, don't take the airbrush approach. I had a simple scratch done with an airbrush and it worked great. However several chips are another problem. Controlling the depth of application in multiple ares is part of the problem as are the little dents it's probably left behind.