is this normal, chip protection coating?

paintguy said:
Polo?

Looks completely normal to me. Many VAG cars have a much heavier stonechip on the sills than other manufacturers. It's a real pain in the backside to remove when you need to repair them!
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They do it under the bumpers too - I put a tow bar on my Rapid Spaceback and after digging the stone chip off the bolt heads and removing them, the crash bar remained firmly in place, held on by sealant and stone chip alone.

I couldn't lever it off, I had to cut through it with a knife. Reminded me of the sealant Peugeot used to bond 205 wings.
 
I have the same along the lower sills on my car, too. Doesn't bother me, don't really notice it.
What exactly is it, though? Presumably some sort of underseal just painted over, which gives it that textured effect?
 
Tetraschutz, 3M BodyGuard, something similar to that painted over. It's applied at different pressure through a specialised gun which helps give it the textured surface.
 
Lopéz said:
They do it under the bumpers too - I put a tow bar on my Rapid Spaceback and after digging the stone chip off the bolt heads and removing them, the crash bar remained firmly in place, held on by sealant and stone chip alone.

I couldn't lever it off, I had to cut through it with a knife. Reminded me of the sealant Peugeot used to bond 205 wings.
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To be fair it's not far off the same kind of stuff.

Many manufacturers use heavily textured coatings like you mention, but this stuff is more akin to a PU sealer like tigerseal and is often used to seal weld seams as well or to create areas of vibration damping ("sound deadening"). Supplied in a cartridge or a foil wrapped "sausage" it goes into a specialist applicator gun that pressurises the sealer to squeeze it out, and sprays the coating on.
 
You'd think the VRS would have some sporty side skirts to hide that kind of thing, Eeewwww.

I've also had cars with that on from the factory, but most have it hidden with trim.
 
When I was looking at potentially buying a VRS they all had the same thing, at first glance I thought the skirts had started rusting up.
 
Glanza said:
When I was looking at potentially buying a VRS they all had the same thing, at first glance I thought the skirts had started rusting up.
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My Astra has the same. Pretty much all the cars I have had have had it in some form. It’s not really normally seen unless you are laying underneath or down low.
 
It's underbody protection, which you can barely see from normal eye level - I'm really surprised at the level of horror and disbelief being shown in this thread :p
 
Lopéz said:
It's underbody protection, which you can barely see from normal eye level - I'm really surprised at the level of horror and disbelief being shown in this thread :p
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It can be clearly felt when washing the car by hand as well.
 
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