Stone Chips?

FlyingFish · 27 Jul 2025 at 18:44

I suppose this question is more angled towards those people that care about their cars.

Having got rid of the family bus, and not yet in the territory of grand kids. I've decided to replace the car for a sporty, yet useable little number.. An Audi SQ2 Black Edition. Which I really like, and I'm really trying to look after and treat it well.

But every time I wash it, or inspect it with my beedy eye. I swear blind there's another bloody stone chip. I must be up to a dozen by now :mad:

I've not had the car from new, it's 18 months old, so I did inherit a few imperfections. But even so... Paint must be soft as **** nowadays.

I've got a little touch up pen, that I dab around. But I'm now thinking about getting the professionals in to go over the car.

Does anyone have any experience with this? And who or what to recommended, and how it turned out?

I can't wait for the time when I'm not precious about the car, but at the moment I'm loving taking care of it :cool:

Cheers

CaptainRAVE · 27 Jul 2025 at 18:47

Don’t drive as close to cars in front generally helps. A few I need touching up, hoping to use the smart repair insurance that came with the car.

FlyingFish · 27 Jul 2025 at 18:54

Lol, the council around here have been doing some of that road dressing resurfacing rubbish..... I've been avoiding them like the plague and banned the Mrs from driving on them..... That went down well

Oh, and here's the car:

CaptainRAVE · 27 Jul 2025 at 18:55

FlyingFish said:
Lol, the council around here have been doing some of that road dressing resurfacing rubbish..... I've been avoiding them like the plague and banned the Mrs from driving on them..... That went down well

Oh, and here's the car:

That’s the worst. Ruined my diamond cut alloys and painted arches on my last car. The stones hammer the top coat on the alloys.

radderfire · 27 Jul 2025 at 19:12

Get Paint Protection Film (PPF).

MrRockliffe · 27 Jul 2025 at 19:40

FlyingFish said:
But even so... Paint must be soft as **** nowadays.

How can you judge all paint on the experience with one car?

I’ve worked on cars from early 2000s with ridiculously soft paint and I’ve worked on modern cars with some of the hardest paint I’ve ever come across.

How do you know it hasn’t had a smart repair either?

FlyingFish said:
But I'm now thinking about getting the professionals in to go over the car.

What do you mean by this? What do you think they can achieve that you can’t with touch ups?

Are you wanting someone to add paint to all the touch ups, level it and then polish it?

Why not have it resprayed and then PPF?

FlyingFish · 27 Jul 2025 at 19:51

With my Tiguan I don't recall that many stone chips in the years we owned it. This one seems to have a few more than I'd like, but maybe that's because I'm looking harder

And yeah, my paintwork skills are zero, so the best I've managed is to drip a tiny spot of paint into the chips to try and hide them and try and do something to protect the area.

I was hoping someone could offer some advice or experience in using a professional service to do a proper job and make them disappear perfectly.

naefeart · 27 Jul 2025 at 20:34

You could get a Smart repairer to touch up the chips, but you’ll only get more as you drive the car. The only way to avoid getting stone chips is to PPF the car, but generally you do this when the car is new or already sans stone chips. You could get all the stone chips professionally resprayed - which is ok if they are localised to a few panels - then get PPF.

But then do you PPF just the front end, front end and impact areas or the whole car? How much do you want to spend, are you keeping the car for a couple of years or until it dies? Something to think about as you need to decide how far you want to go. This is coming from someone who has fully PPFed my current car - at great cost - but has since decided cars should just be used, wear and tear is part of the game.

gc123 · 27 Jul 2025 at 20:53

when you got the car was it all nice and shiny?
the reason i ask is when we had ours again low mileage newish it was perfect.....within a couple a few weeks i was starting to find light scratches and chips. now i usually wash my cars by hand and check them over but this car i swear every time i look at it it seems to have developed a chip or a scratch. most scratches buff out and i fill the chips but its very annoying, i firmly believe the dealer applied something to cover up most of them ......

FlyingFish · 27 Jul 2025 at 21:42

naefeart said:
You could get a Smart repairer to touch up the chips, but you’ll only get more as you drive the car. The only way to avoid getting stone chips is to PPF the car, but generally you do this when the car is new or already sans stone chips. You could get all the stone chips professionally resprayed - which is ok if they are localised to a few panels - then get PPF.

But then do you PPF just the front end, front end and impact areas or the whole car? How much do you want to spend, are you keeping the car for a couple of years or until it dies? Something to think about as you need to decide how far you want to go. This is coming from someone who has fully PPFed my current car - at great cost - but has since decided cars should just be used, wear and tear is part of the game.

I've done a quick google and I think the PPF like you mention would only be something I'd consider with a new car, otherwise I'd be too paranoid to drive the thing, and I totally agree that cars should be driven and enjoyed. And yeah I've probably added the extra chips myself doing totally unnecessary miles, cos I love driving the thing. I've always been the sort of person that goes for a drive, because I like going for a drive

Even though I do plenty of work miles! But all that had been on the back burner while we've gone through the 'having a family car' years.

I'll look into the smart repair option and see what thats like.

gc123 said:
when you got the car was it all nice and shiny?
the reason i ask is when we had ours again low mileage newish it was perfect.....within a couple a few weeks i was starting to find light scratches and chips. now i usually wash my cars by hand and check them over but this car i swear every time i look at it it seems to have developed a chip or a scratch. most scratches buff out and i fill the chips but its very annoying, i firmly believe the dealer applied something to cover up most of them ......

I've had exactly the same thoughts! I swore blind I went over the car with a fine tooth comb before I bought it, and a few weeks later after hand washing every weekend, part of me feels like I had my eyes shut at the dealers. We did buy the car with a small dint/stone damage on the bonnet, the dealer would not budge on getting it repaired, they did do a polish and flattening (?) that did improve it. But they were totally not going to repair and respray the bonnet. Which was fairly ok, as the rest of the car seemed perfect, so I looked past that. And it doesnt really bother me now, its all the 'new' ones I keep spotting.

I've owned it for 6 weeks, had several nice trips, piling on the miles, and I am starting to be more chilled about it. Its just getting to a point were I'm thinking of getting them fixed properly before I take it upon myself to have a go and make a hash of it

MrRockliffe · 28 Jul 2025 at 10:37

FlyingFish said:
With my Tiguan I don't recall that many stone chips in the years we owned it. This one seems to have a few more than I'd like, but maybe that's because I'm looking harder

And yeah, my paintwork skills are zero, so the best I've managed is to drip a tiny spot of paint into the chips to try and hide them and try and do something to protect the area.

I was hoping someone could offer some advice or experience in using a professional service to do a proper job and make them disappear perfectly.

It depends on how many you have.

You’d have 2 options:

1. Have someone come out and individually paint each stone chip, flatten and then polish. The paint won’t match and it’ll be obvious, almost like acne scarring

It won’t look much better than what you can do with a touch up pen.

2. You have the bumper resprayed.