I only have 300 miles on my car, and I noticed yesterday when I clean it that I have a rock chip on my drivers door. My car came with touch up paint, and I was wondering what is the best way to apply it? I've used touch up paint before but you can totally notice it.

 

There are companies online that sell kits. I bought one a few years ago. I think it was a 5-step process. It turned out pretty good.

The key is multiple LIGHT coats. Remember, too, that if you screw up, you can take it off with laquer thinner.

 

I wouldn't do it.... I tried on my hood with a round 1" paint chipping cuz some bastards egged my car, and it looked worse.

I you really wanna do it, test it on part of the car that you can see, like under the bumper or something just so you can see how bad it looks....

I'd ask a body shop what they think... but for me, it just made it look worse.

Good luck,

john / speedraver

 

Yes, touch it up. This will prevent it from coroding.

If it is a chip, your touch up job will be noticable, but not as much as the chip. If it is a significant portion, then you can sand a little and repaint - this is a bigger deal, and if you haven't done before you may want to have someone else do it.

Assuming it is a small chip, I keep it simple.

1) Clean the area very well before you paint it.

2) Do not "paint" the chip. The new touch up paints have pens, just use the pen (I use a toothpick for the ones without the pen) to fill in the chip. Dab a little on the chip, and it should flow to fill it. Do not take a brush and go over the area, it will look worse.

3) I do not clear coat my chip touch ups. I can never get it to look right. As a result, your color will be slightly off, since it has no clear, but it will fill in right.

4) If you mess up, you can usually remove the paint. Even dapping a cloth on it right away before it dires will work. If you get a little out of the chip, I use a clay bar to remove the overage. Seems to work well.

5) If your cleaning process removed the wax, after the paint dries, apply some wax to the area around it.

 

i thought about using masking tape around the edges of the chip, so you won't make that big of a mess

 

I use LANGKA - and it DOES work...
Looks like something you'd buy on late night TV but works great.
I don't have the FX anymore, or I'd snap a pic.

http://www.langka.com/

 

I think touch up looks worse than the chip. People expect paint chips, but not a bunch of little different color spots. They just never look right. I stopped touching up chips after I spent several hours repairing one, only to find another one in the same area the next day.

 

I use the regular touch up. However, I mostly do not use the brush, but instead a tooth pic. Something I learned as a porter a few years back. Ok like 15 years back

 

I second the Langka... check the site and see how it works and you'll understand -- it gets rid of the excess and lets you fill up the chip in layers. A touch of clear on top and some polishing and it's really hard to find the chip!

 

I was looking for advice on how to fix paint chips and dug this up. Just wondering if anyone else had anything else to add, and if langka is the only option other than repaiting.

If so, do you just get the langka starter kit, or is anything else required?


Finally I will clay and compound the paint to remove swirls, should I do the touch ups before or after?

 

You'd want to compound / polish after the touch up because after you wet sand the paint repair down, you're going to need to remove the wet sanding marks in the same manner that you would remove swirls and imperfections from you vehicle. Might as well do them all together.

George