A Paint Chip - to touch up or re-paint?

[Sonny58]

I`ve lurked here for quite a while but this is my first post. Hopefully this is the right forum for my question...



Sadly my left rear car door got dinged by some workmen in a parking lot and the paint was chipped down to the primer (I think that`s what the repair guy said). Anyway, I am faced with a choice of having them do a touch up job or having the entire door repainted. The chip is very small, probably about the size of the head of a pin. One guy suggested he touch up the chip with paint and smooth it out. He said it would hardly be noticeable when he was done. Another shop said the door would need to be completely repainted. The car is a white and new (I took delivery in July) and I believe it was manufactured in June. So the original paint should not be very old. Since the car is brand new I would obviously like it to be restored as much as possible to mint condition but I also worry about paint matching if the entire door is re-painted. Any words of advice on the best course of action?



Thanks kindly in advance...



EDIT: To add a few specifics... the car is a 2013 BMW 535i, Alpine White, and about 3 months old.

[Richard Grasa]

IMO a touch up would be best in this situation. A repaint can open a whole can of worms with possibly not matching, quality of the job, etc. Being such a small chip it should be fairly easy to do a touchup and doesn`t seem worth the possible headaches that could come with a respray. You may even want to look into something like Dr. Colorchip and do it yourself and save alot of $. If you have someone touch it up for you, I would seek out a good detailer that has touch up experience to do it, you will likely get a better result than a body shop.

[tguil]

Sonny58,



You are going to have lots more chips like this....unless you never drive your car. Go with a touch-up and learn how to do it yourself. With a chip this small, the touch-up should be a "piece of cake". I`ll not be critical of your concern. I`ve too been "anal" about my cars and trucks for the last fifty years. There is no "cure". Do a Google Search on "auto paint touch-ups". There is a ton of stuff out there. This is one of the better suggestions. How-To Repair Paint Chips & Deep Scratches



If you are careful,you may not even have to do any sanding. I`ve touched-up both my wife`s white Tacoma and my white Dodge Ram and for pinhead size chips, I skipped the sanding part. You`re lucky that white and black touch-ups are very easy to do well. Metallics....another story.

[Accumulator]

Sonny58- Welcome to Autopia!



As noted, this is something that should just be touched up. White is a rather forgiving color overall (one of my cars is white and I`ve touched it up without problems).



There are a few threads here where we discuss touchups to death, in much greater detail that I can get into now.

If you are careful,you may not even have to do any sanding. I`ve touched-up both my wife`s white Tacoma and my white Dodge Ram and for pinhead size chips, I skipped the sanding part...

Very good advice :xyxthumbs



Where people mess up is in trying to level the chip via wetsanding. I *STRONGLY* encourage anybody who asks about touchups to *NOT WETSAND*. Yeah, some of us do it with no problems, but I honestly believe that this is in the "if you have to ask, you shouldn`t try it" category and I am in no way being condescending. The internet is littered with innumerable posts along the lines of "I was doing a little wetsanding, and....[horror story]..how do I fix this?" The answer is always "you fix that with an expensive trip to the bodyshop, and don`t expect to be happy with the results".



If you really want to level the touchup, I`d go with either the DR Colorchips system or with the Langka Blob Eliminator solvent, both of which I`ve used with varying results. At least with those approaches the worst mistake you can make is long the lines of "oops, I cleaned off the touchup paint! OK, I`ll try that again, a bit more gently...".



Note that right now, ˃99.999% of the door is perfectly good, unmolested, factory paint. IMO the big priority is keeping it that way. I wouldn`t argue if somebody merely waxed/sealed/coated right over that chip and never tried to fix it at all. I have spots on some vehicles that`ve been chipped to primer, or even the e-coat(!) for many years, and I have zero issues despite plenty of winter use.

[tguil]

I most certainly agree with Accumulator about wetsanding. On small a chip like yours for sure I`d skip it. Another thing that I`d not do is apply clear coat over the color coat/base coat. Lots of folks suggest it but I have never done so. One final point...the touch up paint you will be using will probably be acrylic lacquer. This is a very "user friendly" paint. Mess up and all you have to do is swipe off your mistake with automotive lacquer thinner and try again. (It`s an "Oh, heck" deal rather that an and "Oh, s--t" event.) This thinner will do NO damage to factory paint. Your BMW dealer will have small bottles of touch-up paint and I am 99.9% sure that it will be acrylic lacquer.

[Sonny58]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I had initially thought re-painting was the way to go because the car is so new but you guys have convinced me otherwise.



Any recommendations for a detailer in the Houston area with this kind of experience?

[Accumulator]

.. Another thing that I`d not do is apply clear coat over the color coat/base coat. Lots of folks suggest it but I have never done so....

Gotta say that I don`t agree with you there. I use just enough basecoat to cover the primver/etc. at the bottom of the chip and then I apply several coats of clear. So my touchups are a lot more clearcoat than they are basecoat (unless using the DR Colorchips stuff). Besides looking better IME, the clear seems better suited to UV exposure and the rigors of daily life (including washing/polishing) and is less porous than basecoats (sometimes) are. Plus, if you do just a little too much chemical leveling (langka/etc.) and you`re lucky, you`ll just take off lots of the clear, leaving the basecoat intact. Easy to redo with a dab (or three) more clear.



BUT...some dealership touchup paints are single-stage, making the whole debate moot anyhow.



Sonny58- The above is just a bit more food for thought! The more knowledge you have going into this the better prepared you`ll be to ask the right questions, even if you aren`t certain what the right answers oughta be. But really...I`d DIY this. Yeah, I know...but you can do it just fine. Note that no matter *who* does it, you`ll almost certainly be able to spot the repair if you look hard enough. But nobody else will *ever* see it. And if you DIY it, you`ll know what was done/not done. Unless you can find a member here to do it for you, I`d be leery of what might happen in the hands of somebody unknown once your back is turned. It`s my same ol` concern about not letting this extremely minor issue turn into something more.

[DraKhen99]

Oh man, go with what everyone else said, get the touch-up done! I got sideswiped in my truck when it was only a year old, and the lady`s mirror and fender only touched my truck in spots (thanks to the running board, which got trashed). Her insurance`s body shop wanted to do a re-spray and all this other work, for around $1,500.



I took it to the body shop *I* use (which my relatives all use, to great results), and he said he`d rather not re-spray it because it was black and he`d end up re-spraying the whole side of the truck, and it`d never look right again. He did the touch-up, probably the same processes everyone above has listed, and the truck looks great! If you look really close, you can almost see a few tiny spots (about 1/16th of an inch) where the touch-up was applied, but nobody who I told about the accident has noticed - they all commented on how well they did re-spraying the truck.



-John

[David Fermani]

Another vote for doing the touch up. Especially on white.

[P-nut]

What about a silver car? I know it`s more difficult than white, but can a touch up be done reasonably well on a light metallic paint?

[Accumulator]

What about a silver car? I know it`s more difficult than white, but can a touch up be done reasonably well on a light metallic paint?

I`ve *NEVER* had a silver touchup turn out to my satisfaction, and goodness knows I`ve done enough of them They always look OK/not from a certain angle, but it`s never the *right* angle for some reason!



But OTOH, my "good" painter did so well touching up the Jag`s "Rhodium Silver" paint that I have to *REALLY* work at it to spot them even though I know right where they are