FAQs

An OEM code (Original Equipment Manufacturer code) is the series of letters and or numbers that make up a formulation code. The OEM code is then entered into the formulation computer that brings up the exact paint mix formulation for that particular vehicle. These codes help ensure compatibility and authenticity when replacing or repairing vehicle parts. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes! The Chipex™ product works extremely well at stone chips and small scratches and will also significantly improve scuffs. The product has been tested and certified by TUV, the German testing agency. Whilst the product is very good it is not a miracle cure for all damage and it is important that you read the information below on its limitations. If you are at all unsure please contact us by email: info@chipex.co.uk or call us on +44 (0) 1295 258308 and we will be happy to assist you. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

It is important to thoroughly wash and clean the area you are going to repair and remove any residual polish or wax that could be present within the damaged area. You can remove wax/polish by using the blending solution provided in the kits, or white spirits/alcohol wipes. The paint does not adhere well to polish or wax so this is important. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

The Chipex™ system has a specially patented and formulated lacquer within the paint that removes the need for this procedure. Furthermore normal hand applied clear coats as used with a conventional touch up paint change the tone of the colour leaving the repair even more visible. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes the Chipex™ system has a specially patented and formulated additive that hardens the paint once it has cured. The curing period is in the region of two weeks depending on weather conditions. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

You can use a jet washer to clean your car straight away however we recommend that you try and avoid the repaired area until it has fully cured. Curing takes around two weeks. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

No, Not straight away! When a car has just been painted the paintwork is soft and requires time to harden. After one month following painting it is safe to use Chipex™. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

No, due to the vast selection of colours available we make each paint to order on a daily basis so it is completely new for the customer and to maximise shelf life. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

The shelf life of the Chipex™ paint and blending solution is three plus years. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

No, the Chipex™ Blending Solution will only work with the specially formulated Chipex paint. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Chipex paint is NOT a rust inhibitor, and the paint could rise after a period of time due to the moisture within the damaged area. A rust inhibitor product can be purchased from the Chipex™ website which will assist with rust reduction. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes Chipex™ is suitable for use on classic cars. Cars painted pre 1970 will have been painted in a Cellulose paint that is very soft and whilst the Chipex paint can be used the blending solution can affect the paintwork as this type of paint is very soft and it is not recommended. Most classic/vintage cars have generally been repainted in modern paint so this is not applicable. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes we can. If you have a car, light aircraft or boat that you do not have the colour code then if you could supply us with a panel or paint part we can match to it. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Touching up your car’s paint, even with the many clever and easy to use solutions that we have these days at our disposal, is always a nerve-racking ordeal. Everything rushes through your head at once; are you using the right paint for the job, or whether you’re even putting it on properly. Am I painting too much over the lines, or do I need to wax the car down after this.

This is made more anxious after you suddenly remembered someone mentioning sanding your car. Well, it turns out that a bit of gritty sanding helps a lot to smoothen out the damaged or chipped paintwork. Overall, this makes it both easier to touch up, and may improve the final look of the now-repaired bodywork. But what grit of sandpaper should you be using for paint touch-ups

A Few Gritty Facts That You Should Know

Before we dive deeper, however, what exactly is grit? In sandpaper, ‘grit’ defines how much abrasive material in individual pieces you have per square inch of paper. For example, 1,000 pieces of grit on one square inch of sandpaper would equate to 1,000-grit sandpaper. Something else we’ll learn through this is that the higher the grit number is, the finer (less coarse) the sandpaper will be

In automotive applications, the grit rating can vary anywhere from a scratchy 40 grit, to a very fine 3,000 grit. It’s crucial to understand the differences, as either end of the grit spectrum has its use for car repairs. Here’s a breakdown of the most common grit ratings on sandpaper that you may come across

40 grit – These are as coarse as sandpaper can be, for the most part. For 40 grit, it’s a very rough surface that will leave sanding marks, often used to prep the bodywork before any paint or material even goes on it. It’s very handy to have when say, you’re trying to remove deep rust before any body filler is coated.

80 grit – If 40 grit is rough enough to smoothen out your car’s bare bodywork, 80 grit is a step below that in coarseness. This is a great starting point for after the filler’s dried out, and you’re looking to smoothen out the body filler before adding the primer, and then the base coat of the coloured paint on top

120-180 grit – Once again, these two are great for finer sanding of the filler layer. Some specialists finish off the filler with 120 grit after the 80 grit sandpaper has done most of the smoothening work of the overall surface. 180 grit can be used to carefully feather the edges of the filler and remove any spot putty, but also doubles as a good way to remove small scratches with minimal markings

320-400 grit – Both are excellent for the finishing steps of sanding and levelling the filler surface before the primer is painted on. Remember that even the tiniest of imperfections left on the filler can magnify greatly once the primer, and then the base-coat is added on top. Thus, these incremental grit sanding increases are needed

600-800 grit – Although some might be brave enough to use 400 grit sandpaper on the upper primer layer, it’s best to use 600 grit for that job. Most would recommend starting with sanding the primer with 600 grit, before slowly moving up to the finer 800 grit paper

1,000-1,200 grit – Either one are good options for removing imperfections from the coloured base coat. The best way to do this is using a method called “wet sanding”, where you would soak the sandpaper and the base-coat surface with a lot of water. The wet sanding process often enables the sandpaper to cut faster, and prevents particles of the paint from clogging up the abrasive paper. Although, and depending on how dry the paint is, a regular “dry sanding” would be good enough

1,500-3,000 grit – However, do know that even the finer 1,200 sandpaper will still leave marks, which you’ll have to remove before adding the final clear-coat layer for the best results. For this, you can use 1,500 or up to 2,000 grit sandpaper. On top of that, 1,500 and 2,000 grit could also be used after the clear-coat has been applied, to get improved final eye candy. You can scale this all the way up to 3,000 grit, if you prefer. In both cases, wet sanding is the preferred way to go about it

Sanding Your Car’s Paint

At this point, we’re now well acquainted with which grit of sandpaper you’d need to use. In all, the varying grit sizing will be best suited based on what layer of the paint you’re on, and what or how much is the material that you want to remove

Primer – Anything below or around 500 grit sandpaper will do wonders at quickly removing the upper paint surfaces, and down to the primer layer. This is great if you might want to start from scratch during the touch-up, or if some significant imperfections need to be ironed out. You can then move up to finer grit levels as you slowly start to finish off a smoothened look for the primer

Base-Coat – The argument of ‘dry vs. wet’ sanding will depend on your touch-up paint of choice. If it’s waterborne, then wet sanding may start removing the paint itself. Once you’ve considered your approach, you can start using 1,000 grit sandpaper to sand out imperfections in the paint. You can then move upwards to 1,500 grit, as the base-coat surface starts looking finer and shinier

Clear-Coat – The final clear-coat layer is what tops off your car’s paint, so you’ll need to be careful about the grittiness of the sandpaper of your choice. 1,500 grit is a good starting point, though you’ll need to be cautious about sanding it off too much. It’s better if you have 2,000 grit, at least, as you can then move up and up to 2,500 grit, and the final 3,000 grit for an ultra-fine finishing touch.

Touch-up paint can, in a way, be considered a miracle of modern engineering and chemistry. In the old days, you’d have to get your entire car – or a whole panel – repainted professionally just for a tiny crack or chip. Now, there are dedicated repair kits that you can easily use at home. Yet, there are a few limitations to touch-ups, and one of them is something that we don’t consider often – weather. The chemicals inside touch-up paint are just as complex as paints typically are. Thus, they need a set of unique circumstances to be properly applied, and the climate that it’s exposed to while the touch-up is happening is one of those factors. The humidity and temperature are the most important ones to think about anytime you’re painting your car. But what if you have no choice? What if it’s rapidly approaching winter soon – while the air around you is slowly dropping into crystalline coldness – and you need your car’s scratches and chips covered up to prevent damage, or even worse, rust? Rust, of course, can easily eat into the now-exposed and unpainted layer to corrode the bodywork of your car. How cold then, is too cold for paint touch-ups? For Paint – Hot > Cold Firstly, what’s the science between the effects of temperature on how a paint properly cures – that is to say, sufficiently dried and “painted” onto the bodywork or panel? In layman’s terms, this involves knowing how the compounds in the paint are able to dry themselves, and ensuring that the necessary chemical reactions occur smoothly so that the newly-applied touch up paint can adhere to the car’s bodywork. More importantly, it needs to “blend” in with the rest of the original, untouched paint. Generally, we can say that hotter temperatures are far better than colder weather when it comes to using touch-up paint. For Chipexc the ambient temperature should be between 6°C to 35°C. Ideally, try to stick to around 15°C to 25°C which is the best for painting or touching up your car. That, combined with a humidity of less than 85% is a healthy balance between letting it cure sufficiently, but neither too quickly nor slowly. Thus, you’re best left to touch up your car’s paint in a well-lit, insulated, heated, humidity-controlled, and adequately ventilated garage. What Happens If You Paint Your Car While It’s Too Cold Outside? Cold conditions can interfere with the paint’s ability to coalesce and bond with your car. If it’s too chilly out when you’re applying the paint – especially so if the surface that you’re painting is rock solid – the polymer particles in the paint don’t have sufficient energy to move around and bounce together. Thus, the temperature of the surface, paint, and air need to be ideal for it to “stick”. For the basecoat – the primary base colour for the paint – you may need two to three (or more) coats on top of one another to get the full effect, and thus levelling out your paint to match the rest of the car, while also making sure the colour matches and blends nicely. And before you can add the new layer, you also have to make sure that the layer of touch-up paint below that one dries thoroughly. When it’s cold out, you’ll need to wait longer before applying another layer. For example, if there’s a more ideal ambient temperature of around 20°C, you may have to wait around four hours for each layer to dry – though this will vary depending on what paint touch-up you’re using. But if the temperature drops to say, 6°C or below, it might take six or more hours for that layer to dry.

Painting a car is a lot harder than it looks. It’s by no means the same as spray painting a wall. On a car, if you get just one coat or layer of paint wrong, then you’ll have to start all over from scratch. This is an art, which can take a lot of patience and precision to master. But amidst all this talk of paint, one particular subject often comes to mind.

Does one sand between the coats? There are, after all, many individual layers sprayed on top of one another on your car’s bodywork. These layers are what gives your car its unique tinge of colour, as well as its richness and depth. So, does sanding it down ruin or improve your car’s overall finish, especially with a paint touch-up? Well, the answer is a bit complicated.

In A Nutshell…

You’re not recommended to sand after every primer coats, or following the upper base- and clear coats. The justification for this is quite simple, in that the paint might still be a bit too soft or wet, despite it not appearing so to the naked eye, or to the touch. Even just a tiny swipe of your sandpaper could ruin the finish, and you’ll then have to sand it all the way down and start over.

You may be (very) careful in sanding it if there is a speck of dust, sand, or debris that lands on the wet paint, and you need to wipe it off. Alternatively, the paint isn’t even, there is some paint running blobs down the side, or if the texture isn’t right. This too could be rectified with a bit of careful and slow sanding. But otherwise, it’s pointless.

More to that, it makes your paint touch-up job a lot more complex, time-consuming, and expensive for no reason whatsoever. However, there’s a lot more truth in the pudding than it might seem. To look at this more closely, we’ll look at whether sanding is something you should consider doing at all for every coat level…

1. Primer

The primer is the base of your paintwork, sitting between the bare metal or plastic body underneath, and the colourful paints up top. Using a primer enables greater adhesion, and enabling the paint to stick onto the bodywork a lot better. It fills in any gaps or defects in the bodywork by smoothening it out, as well as providing extra protection for the body from corrosion, UV light, and so on.

One key subject with the primer is that it needs to be smooth and even, thus ensuring that your base- and clear coats are perfect and levelled. Thus, some people have wondered if sanding after every single coat of primer – and the entire primer layer has multiple coats – could help with this. The answer, is no. There’s no point at all for sanding after each coat.

The only result that you’ll achieve is prolonging your repainting or touch-up process. However, many professional painters do recommend sanding after all the coats of primer are done. Only after the primer as a whole has dried through its many coats, you could sand it to further ensure that the surface is completely smooth and free of debris. This would be immensely helpful later on.

2. Base Coat

Following the primer, you have the base coat. This is where the actual paint comes in, and it’s from this base coat that your car gets its colours and dazzle. Just like the primer, the base coat is not applied as a single coat, and is indeed sprayed as multiple individual coats. In this case, sanding between every single coat of the base coat layer, or even once it’s done is unnecessary.

As we mentioned earlier, any use of sanding along the base coat should only be done in the case of there being any damage, debris, or imperfections in the paint. With some types or shades of paints, such as metallic or pearlescent colours, sanding could massively ruin the looks of the metallic flakes or pearls. At which point, you’ll have to undo that whole coat.

3. Clear Coat

Up top, we have the clear coat. This is a transparent layer of paint that acts as a finisher on top of your base coat and form a protective layer. Although the clear coat is quite thin, you’d still need to – generally speaking – at least apply several coats to form the entire clear coat layer. Just like with the base coat, sanding between coats of the clear coat is not recommended.

If there is some imperfection or defects, then sand it down very, very carefully. This is owing to how thin the clear coat is. If you’ve sanded past this and onto the base coat layer below, then you’ll have to sand away all of the clear coat and repaint a bit of the base coat. Once again, the consequence of sanding could result in you having to spend more time, energy, and money than is required.

Nevertheless, many people recommend wet sanding and polishing only after the clear coat as a whole is done, and fully dried out. A lot of water sits between the clear coat and the abrasive sanding material, which helps to sand down the paint, or any tiny imperfections more thoroughly. The use of wet sanding and polishing compounds is quite popular in the automotive detailing industry.

Conclusion

There is a very familiar pattern emerging here. Sanding is a process that you should use sparsely, and only when there is a need for it. Sanding after the primer layer is complete is a great way to iron out any tiny flaws that you might’ve missed. The base coat and its many layers can be sanded, but very carefully so, and only when you need to rectify errors in the paint job.

Even then, you should reapply that entire layer of the base coat once more to maintain the look of the paintwork. The clear coat, meanwhile, should be treated the same way. Once that’s dried out and complete, a bit of wet sanding and polishing would do wonders at perfecting your car’s fresh coat of paint that bit better.

Automotive paints have a complex degree of chemistry about them, which some might say that people who aren’t in the industry truly understand or appreciate as much as we should. If you think about it, you can see why this is the case. Unlike the paints that you brush onto your bedroom wall, a car has to go through a lot more climates and environments than a brick structure.

It needs to stand up to rapid changes of humidity, moisture, temperature, while also having to survive all the grit and pebbles that get thrown at your car. Plus, it’ll also have to get past those dings and scuffs that you inevitably come across throughout the lifetime of owning that car. Above all else, it still has to look good at every juncture, shining and glistening in the sun.

With that in mind, you’d perhaps be curious to know that there’s a lot of different types of car paints, each one with its own alchemy and how it’s able to present itself. Therefore, you’re no doubt keen to understand more about why this is so. More importantly, is it possible to use acrylic-based paint – one of the most common in any application – could be used to touch up your car’s paint job.

The Different Types Of Automotive Paints

Before we look into whether you can or cannot use acrylic paints to touch up your car’s paintwork – spoilers: you absolutely can – we should take a moment to look into the different types of paint finishes that you can spray onto your car. Generally, speaking, there are five different types of paints for the automobile. Each, naturally, has its own benefits and downsides to come along with it.

Lacquer

For the car, lacquer has been around for a long time. In fact, motorcars have been using lacquer since the 1920s. You’ll also find lacquer on wood and furniture. Lacquer shines beautifully, and dries a lot faster than other types of paint. This ease to apply it makes lacquer incredibly popular for those who know that they’ll need a new coat of paint all too frequently.

However, lacquer isn’t very popular nowadays, simply owing to all its disadvantages over newer formulations of paint. Lacquer may dry quickly, but it takes at least six to eight coats to complete. This means it’ll cost more, and will take more time to complete. Plus, lacquer isn’t durable enough, as it can chip away in the sun.

Urethane

Another popular type of paint, urethane could also go to places underneath your car’s bodywork. One strong pro of using urethane is its durability. It’s long-lasting and can protect your car from the harshness of the outside world, be it debris, muck, or salt. This added strength is also what makes urethane a popular choice to paint over surfaces around hot components like within your engine bay.

Still, the major downside to urethane is its chemicals. If combined with some form of chemical hardening compound to accelerate the drying of your urethane paint, it could turn the whole mixture to be toxic. This, in turn, can be deadly for your lungs. Plus, it can be quite difficult to get urethane paint applied and finished properly, so you’re best to leave this to the professionals.

Metallic

You might be familiar with metallic paint. It’s more expensive than the others, and there’s a good reason for this. The name stems from the fact that tiny metal fragments are scattered in the paint. When this hits the sun, or even under moderate lighting, it can shimmer and glow like no other. It’s incredibly good eye candy, and could also double to hide tiny scuffs just through its reflections.

Although, there is one crippling flaw with this. Should you find yourself in the need to touch up your metallic paint finish, it’s going to be a tough fix. Mainly, this increased difficulty is down to how difficult it can be to match the colour. Moreover, it can be cost-prohibitive, and there are fewer colours overall for third-party touch-up kits to choose from.

Matte

This seems like it’s becoming more popular in today’s cars. Luxury and sporty cars like to stick out by using matte paint, and it certainly does seem to work. It catches your attention with immediacy thanks to how unique it is. Matte paint doesn’t have a glossy finish. The end result is a completely flat surface, and it does seem to look rather good in almost any condition or lighting.

But for all the coolness that you get being seen driving in a matte car, it hits back at you hard when it comes to upkeep. If you ever scratch it, those scuffs will stand out more as it can’t use reflections to hide it. Plus, trying to keep it clean and detailed will be a pain, as you could only use a certain type of shampoo and technique. When it comes to time to touch it up, it’ll be quite a big repair bill, too.

What About Acrylic Paint?

Now, we have the fifth popular type of automotive paint – acrylic. Now, acrylic in itself has different sub-types, which include acrylic enamel, acrylic lacquer, and acrylic urethane. With acrylic being a water-based paint, these subcategories and mixtures each have their distinct characteristic. Acrylic lacquer shares many similarities with regular lacquer paints.

It’s easy to put on, though is only slightly more durable. Acrylic urethane is a bit like urethane too, as it’s easy to apply and lasts a very long time. Yet, it’s not as toxic. Meanwhile, acrylic enamel paint is interesting, as it’s made to be highly durable, since it forms into a hardened shell once it starts to dry. This enamel-infused paint is actually baked onto the car when it’s being painted.

Generally speaking, any type of acrylic paints is fairly long-lasting and relatively affordable. It’s very easy to apply and to touch up. Moreover, it’s quite easy to maintain. However, there are naturally some kinks in the acrylic armour. For one, acrylic paints take a little while to dry – sometimes upwards of a couple of days – before you can apply the next layer. On top of that, it’s not always that durable compared to other types of paints, as it can fade away under sunlight if exposed for long.

Conclusion

So, to answer the question in the title, you absolutely can use acrylic paint to touch up your car. For the average joe or jane looking into which type of paint is the best for them, either for a project car or to fill in a scratch, acrylic might be their best bet. It’s relatively affordable, easy to apply, and doesn’t require a lot to keep it shiny. Nevertheless, it might be handy to have a garage around or to keep your car indoors, just to make sure the sun doesn’t start dulling your glossy acrylic finish.

Right, let’s picture the scene… You just arrived home from work, excited to have that big family reunion party tomorrow. But as you park up your car for the night – keen to show it off to your jealous siblings – your jaw falls to the floor as you see a long, deep scratch along the doors. Not wishing to think much about it, you rush across the house to find something to fill it in with.

You don’t have the time for a proper touch-up or respray, and you certainly don’t want to be left red-faced in front of your kin. You scramble across every single drawer and cabinet, and finally, that aha moment comes into mind. In the dark depths of your dressing table’s innards, you see a few bottles of nail polish. But… Can you really use nail polish to touch up your car’s paint?

Nail Polish… For Your Car?

If you’re in that exact emergency situation right now and don’t have the luxury to read through, then yeah, nail polish does more or less work as a touch-up solution. In fact, it’s not just nail polish that could behave as a household stop-gap for paint repairs. Even permanent markers have been found to work decently well too. Mind you, either solution only works if you’re in a desperate pinch.

But it’s nonetheless surprising news to find that nail polish is able to work on your car’s paintwork. Renault even makes and sells nail polish that perfectly matches its cars, and could double as paint touch-ups. It looks good once painted on your fingernails, too. However, does nail polish really work that well, to a point where you could dot it across your car?

Does It Work?

Well, we have to remember that cars undergo hugely expensive paint processes with special chemicals and production methods to give them that glowing sheen. Nail polish, on the other hand, is made differently. Still, it can certainly do the job when you need it to. Generally speaking, we haven’t found significant evidence to suggest that nail polish in itself could damage your car.

Although, the process of removing that nail polish afterward is a bit tricky and complex, and it could make you wonder if it was worth the trouble. For example, let’s say that you’d like for a professional paint touch-up and repair after you’ve already applied the nail polish for a quick DIY fix. Before they could even get to (re)painting your car, they’ll need to remove that nail polish.

It might require some sanding or lots of nail polish remover. Either way, the extra steps will take more time, and might even result in secondary damage to the surrounding paint as you do so. Even so, nail polish might not entirely match your car’s finish. The colour might be spot on when it’s in the bottle, but once applied, it could appear vastly different as an end result.

How Can You Use Nail Polish To Touchup Your Car’s Paint?

So far then, it seems like nail polish, though a great emergency touch-up repair, could prove risky. It will add to the hassle later on, and may cost you more for damages and extra steps to remove it. Thus, you’ll have to be the determiner of whether that risk is worth it for you. If it is, then here are some easy steps in how to attempt touch up your car’s paint with some nail polish. But we really don’t recommend doing it, look up a proper touch up kit instead. However if you’re going ahead:

• The first step would be to clean up the area around the damage. This is a crucial step, as nail polish could seal in any grit or grime, which will end up damaging your car’s bodywork underneath.
• Find a matching colour of nail polish. As this is a mostly temporary fix – and depending on the visibility of the area that you’re painting on – try to find a nail polish colour that’ll more or less match your car’s paint.
• Once you’ve cleaned the damaged section of the car and let it dry, you can start applying the first coat of nail polish. Put on that one layer carefully, moving the stroke of the brush along one direction and in a single stroke, and then let that coat dry out completely.
• If you could see through that first coat down to the bodywork, or if it’s not completely level with the rest of the surrounding paint, then you could apply a second coat or more.
• When you think that it’s satisfactory with the number of coatings you’ve applied and had allowed them to dry, grab some clear nail polish. More specifically, this clear “top coat” nail polish is an extra protective layer, which will also contribute a bit of shine to the finished look.

In Summary…

Nail polish is indeed a rather helpful and multi-purpose tool, not only in making our fingernails look all pretty, but also a handy apparatus to keep in the house in case you need a quick touch-up of your car’s paint. It’s a cheap fix, and one that even the automotive novice can manage. However, you’ll have to be aware of the risks and future inconveniences as a result of this.

Needing to remove all that nail polish later on will cost you time and money. Plus, the removal process may even cause added damage to your car’s paintwork, which will cost you even more time and money. So long as you’re perfectly conscious of these issues, and are willing to accept them, then you could certainly keep nail polish around in the garage.

However, specialised car paint touch-up solutions are no doubt a lot better than nail polish. Not only could it be matched perfectly to your car, but it’ll stick on there like the paint came straight from the showroom floor. These paint touch-up solutions are still our go-to recommendation if you need to fix your car’s damaged paint, but if you’re in a hurry and not bothered about a good result, then grab that nail polish and go mad.

There’s something so very serene and satisfying about getting your car washed. To see all the muck and grime accumulating over tens, hundreds, or thousands of miles worth of driving wash away into oblivion is so very pleasing. However, pressure washing does bring with it some dilemmas to consider, such as whether it’ll strip away all your touch-up paint, Of course, who hasn’t had at least one run-in needing to touch up their car? Stone chips and scratches are a common conundrum with everyday car ownership, but it’s made a lot easier knowing that most paint touch-up solutions are easy to find and apply these days. Nevertheless, you’re not always so sure if it works as well as you think it might, and whether a blast of water will ruin it all. Does Pressure Washer Have An Effect On Paint? The first question that we can answer is – does using a pressure washer affect your car’s original paintwork? To that, we say ‘Maybe’. A lot of enthusiasts and loving car owners promote the use of a pressure washer to keep your car looking as fresh as it came from the factory. But on the other side, we have folks telling us that pressure washing a car could actually damage it. In fact, both sides are right on this one, and while there are a lot of upsides to pressure washing done right, there are also risks (and consequences) attached to not doing it properly. It’s so much of a risk, that Consumer Reports themselves once wrote a recommendation against pressure washing your car, as it could cause more harm than good. Here’s a look at both ends of the story… Using A Pressure Washer – The Right Way Pressure washing a car, owing to the high pressures that it can exert on the bodywork, is a great way to remove all the stubborn dirt and grime that could otherwise not be dislodged with a simple garden hose. The process involves a specialised hose to deliver a steady, high-powered stream of water, and there are more than a few variables to consider with pressure washers. Essentially, this will factor in how safe a particular pressure washer will be to use for a car, and where does it get too far to a point where it might wash away your paint or newly-applied paint touch-up. A particular note before we get started, do bear in mind your safety before pressure washing. The PSI ratings are strong enough, in some cases, to cause serious injury. PSI and GPM – Both of these relate to the flow of the water, with PSI (pounds per square inch) defining the pressure at which the water is released, and GPM (gallons per minute) telling you how much water in volume is released. For most cars, you’re recommended to use a pressure washer with a rating between 1,200 to 1,900 PSI, and 1.4 to 1.6 GPM. Multiplied together, and you get a value of around 1,900 to 2,800 “cleaning units”. Too much, and it could strip away the paint and coating. Electric or Petrol – Most pressure washers are either petrol, or electric powered. In general, you can expect that petrol-powered pressure washers will be able to deliver more power, or in other words, more pressure. For car-related washing, you’re recommended to use electric pressure washers within. the PSI and GPM ratings from earlier. Using an overly powerful petrol pressure washer could not only strip away your car’s paint and coating, but potentially even crack the windows and plastic trim. Nozzle Angle – When using a pressure washer, there are a variety of nozzles to attach to the other end that determines the spread of the water. You can often find a nozzle angle from 0 to 65 degrees, with the lower nozzle angles being more direct and targeted. When pressure washing your car, you should pick a nozzle angle that spreads the pressure and flow of the water by 15 degrees or more. Anything less, and it might be strong enough to affect the car’s paint finish. Distance – Not only must you consider the pressure and flow rate of the pressure washer, but also the distance from where the nozzle is in relation to the surface of the car. If you’re standing too close, even a weak pressure washer with relatively safe PSI ratings can be too strong for the paint to handle. So, make sure that you’re standing at least four to five feet away from the car when using the pressure washer. Pressure Washing – The Wrong Way But not all is good in the world of pressure washing your car. It’s not recommended for those that have little experience to use a pressure washer, as it can cause a lot of trouble and inconveniences. Here are some examples of what happens when it all goes wrong… Some owners fail to clean off the car’s surface thoroughly enough in their first run. This leads to dirt and other small particles gathering on the car’s paintwork. When combined with being forced by the pressure washer, it can turn heavily abrasive as it scrapes and scratches the paintwork. If the paint is already chipped or scratched, the high PSI from the pressure washer might cause these to open up, or for the paint to peel off around it. Too high of a PSI, washing from the bottom to top (instead of the other way around to clear off dirt and debris), or putting the stream of the pressure washer in one place for too long, can strip away or cause significant scratching and other damage to the paint. In the end, we’d like to reiterate the common adage of washing your car the old-school< way; a couple of buckets of soapy water (proper car washing shampoo, not dish soap, mind), and a soft wash mitt. For paint touch-ups, it’s highly suggested that you give your car, especially around the newly repaired and touch-up area, a good waxing to add an additional protective layer once the paint’s all dry. Then, consider washing it, as we recommended earlier, a couple of days after the waxing process to properly give the touch-up a bit more time to dry up. While pressure washing does have its fair share of upsides, such as using the stream to clean away the stubborn and hard-to-reach spots like your car’s undercarriage, you should leave that to the professionals.

Insurance… You hate having to pay for the premiums every single month. However, it can be a godsend for whenever you get into a sticky situation, and are in need to claim some money for patching up your car, as well as covering any other extra costs and compensations. But what if you discover that your car now has an unsightly scratch on it.

As you ponder along what caused it and what to do next, you just remembered about your car’s insurance. But does your insurance coverage even compensate for scratches? Moreover, is it worth calling your insurance agent for what is seemingly a simple scratch? The answer to that is yes, you can indeed file an insurance claim for a scratch.

But do you really want to, that’s the better question. You might find that for minor scratches and cosmetic damage, it’s not worth claiming that insurance money. But why is this so?

Be Mindful Of What Your Insurance Covers

To understand this a bit more, we need to look at what type of insurance coverage you have for your car. For example, some folks are unable to afford anything more than the basic insurance policy, which unfortunately doesn’t cover scratches. But the pricier tiers above that should indeed offer you some protection.

However, you’ll also have to be mindful of the nature of the scratch itself. You see, different types of scratches, and how they appeared, may not be covered under some types of insurance policies. For this, let’s take a peek at the different coverages of insurance that you can get in the UK.

Third Party

Covers you to drive your car on the UK roads, and will pay for repairs on other peoples cars if you have any accident, but not your own. But does not cover scratches.

Third Party, Fire and Theft

This cover is the same as third party mentioned above, but also helps cover a car fire and theft of your own car. But does not cover scratches.

Comprehensive Coverage

When it comes to comprehensive coverage, this is an insurance package that covers damage caused by a collision, theft, or vandalism etc. For example, your car was keyed (in other words, vandalism, which requires a police report for a claim), a tree branch fell on your car, or someone pushed a shopping trolley and had hit your car.

These types of accidental damages are covered under a comprehensive auto insurance. A comprehensive package, therefore, covers you when when you’re not within or in control of your car at the time the scratch happened as well as cover road traffic accidents.

This sort of coverage also covers scratches caused by accidents with other objects. However, this doesn’t just include other cars. It could be you hitting stationary objects, such as driving into a post box or a pole. Maybe you’ve hit your door on another car in a tight parking space etc.

Car washes can sometimes scratch your car, or perhaps you squeezed your car through some wooded areas and had branches scrape the side of your car. Otherwise, it might be hitting debris or stone chips while you’re driving along. If you’re piloting your car when this scratch emerged, then you’ll be covered as well under comprehensive insurance.

Is It Worth Filing An Insurance Claim For A Scratch?

Since we’ve understood a bit more on what types of insurance covers for what sort of scratches, we have to ask whether it’s all worth it. There are several questions that you need to ask yourself before you decide…

Does this scratch impact the aesthetics of my car, and will it thus contribute to a reduction in the resale value of left as is? Is the cost of repairing that scratch within your insurance policy’s excess amount, and do you have cash to fix it? Are you willing and prepared for the potential of having to pay for higher insurance premiums after making that claim? We should look at these questions one by one. The first might affect you heavily if you own a newer car. A scratch, although it might not be too bad, could have a huge impact on your car’s resale value. It’s a sore on the eyes, and few would be keen to buy your car if it has a nasty scrape on the side of it. Depending on how much your car is worth, you’ll have to decide this on your own.

The next one is a good prompt to get through right away. How much is your insurance policy’s excess? Let’s say you’ve had your car sent to a workshop post-scratch, and had it inspected. The technician says it’s going to cost £1,500 for a complete fix. If your insurance has an excess of £500, then you’ll need to pay that £500 out of pocket.

Meanwhile, the remaining £1,000 is paid by the insurance company. While this might seem great, remember that claiming your insurance does have a chance of increasing your premium. As such, we recommend that damages less than your excess amount should just be paid out of pocket, in order to avoid higher rates down the line. Speaking of which, there’s the premium.

If you’re found to be at-fault – in other words, you caused the scratch – then your premiums will no doubt go up as soon as you make a claim. According to the data that we’ve found, it could rise between 10% to 40% for your first at-fault claim. A second at-fault claim could see your insurance premiums spiking by another 40% to 150%.

To Claim, Or Not To Claim

In conclusion, we can say that yes, insurance policies do generally cover scratches (aside from many basic coverage plans). However, whether or not you should go ahead and make a claim is a completely different subject altogether. If your scratch is very minor and isn’t too terribly expensive to fix, then you’d best be dealing with that away from the insurance company.

Although, if the scratch itself is costly to fix, and could have a detrimental impact on your vehicle’s value, then claiming that insurance money isn’t a bad idea at all. The two things to bear in mind the most are your insurance excess, and its yearly premium rates. In all, it’s great to have a good insurance policy watching over you. But do think twice before you make a call with your car insurance company.

Your car is a temple, ever so beautiful and shiny… Until suddenly, you notice a scratch or a stone chip appear on the paintwork. Alas, that perception is now ruined but is nonetheless easily fixable thanks to the advent of easy to use DIY-style paint touch-up solutions. For just around £30, you can find a plethora of excellent automotive paint touch-up kits online, with everything you’ll ever need. Be it a brush or a bottle, it makes the job of repainting your car far simpler and cheaper than the old-school method of having an entire section be repainted professionally, otherwise costing you hundreds or thousands of pounds in repairs. But there is at least one point of concern that you’ll need to worry about as you’re pondering over touching up your car’s paint – the temperature. Paints, after all, are very complex chemical compounds that require a specific set of factors for them to be thoroughly applied, in it adhering to your car’s paint, drying sufficiently, and being presented nicely. The temperature of the air, surface of your car, and the paint itself play a crucial role, as is the climate the humidity around you. So, just how hot is too hot for touching up your car’s paint? But first, let’s look into the most ideal temperature you’ll need to painting or touching-up your car. The science behind how all these works will look deep into the chemistry of the paint, and its chemical reactions that are necessary for it to cure (or dry), as well as it sticking to the surface of your car’s bodywork, and blending in neatly in colour, levelling, and texture to the rest of the untouched paint. Too hot or cold, and the paint touch-up can interfere with the paint’s ability to coalesce and bond to your car. In effect, it can cause the polymer particles to have insufficient energy to move about and bounce around (if the temperature is too cold), and vice versa. Neither is a good circumstance to be painting your car, and we thus recommend that you stick between 6°C to 32°C, just to be safe. This is a very broad range for ambient temperatures to be applying touch-up paint, and remember that it will vary from one paint to the next. The ideal temperatures to be applying any sort of paint is around 15°C to 25°C, including a relative humidity of the air of less than 85%. In this case, you’re best left to do the painting in an insulated, ventilated, well-lit, and humidity-controlled garage. What Exactly Does Temperature Effect? Okay, so that’s the science out of the way, how does varying temperature affect you while you’re in the process of applying touch-up paint? Well, temperature – either too hot, too cold, or just right – will impact the drying times for your paint. More specifically, the drying times for each layer of an alkyd, oil, or water-based paint, which most touch-up paint solutions are made of. The basecoat, which represents the primary contributor of paint and colour, needs at least two to three or more layers each to get the full effect. This means that the paint can sit evenly with the rest of the car – as it’s more filled in – and the colour blends in nicely in its hue and texture. Before you can apply a new layer, however, the one before and below it needs to properly dry and cure. Let’s say, for example, that it’s too chilly out. This means that the touch-up paint will take more time to dry, so you’ll have to wait longer between coats. Instead of around four hours to dry when the temperature is a perfect 20°C, it may take six or more hours if it drops to 6°C or below. It won’t just affect your patience, but there will be more than a few imperfections in the paint once it does dry. Just Make Sure It’s Not Too Hot So far, we can conclude that hotter is better when it comes to painting or touching up your car, as it enables the paint’s chemistry to function as intended. However, do remember that painting your car while the temperatures around you are toasty hot is equally a big no-no. In fact, you should avoid painting at all under direct sunlight, or if the ambient temps reach 35°C or higher, and is humid. 40°C or more, and you’re really asking for trouble now. With this warmer weather, your touch-up paint will dry too quickly. While you personally will want to move on as quickly as possible to the next coat, the paint needs a bit more time to cure appropriately. In some cases, the drying times for each coat of paint will be cut by half or more, which can be catastrophic to the paint finish. Here are just some side effects of applying touch-up paint (or old-school repainting) to a car when the climate around you is too sunny and hot… The paint can “flash”, meaning that the solvents within the paint can evaporate. When this happens, the succeeding layer of paint will be dissolved by some of the evaporated residue left by the paint below. Consequently, it can form imperfections akin to a splotchy or poorly applied paint job, rather than an even finish all-around. The paint might not stick to the surface of your car. Instead, the paint may peel away and pop off the vehicle after some weeks have passed, as the paint dries out with no actual adhesion to the bodywork or panel below. In conclusion, having your car painted or touched up in hot and humid weather isn’t just unkind and discomforting to your body (and mind) while you have to work underneath the beaming sun, but it also does terrible things to how the paint will stick, cure, and look. Rather than living with all the defects, do try to stick to that ideal temperature range between 15°C to 25°C for the best results.

No car is immune from road rash. The more we drive it, the more susceptible it is to suffer from this disease. But what exactly is road rash, and what’s causing it? Road rash can be explained by the numerous scratches, chips, and markings on the surface of your car’s paintwork. Mostly, they appear in areas along the tyres, bumpers, side mirrors, bonnet, and most of the front fascia. The cause of road rash is quite simple – stones, gravel, salt, and other debris that you might find on the road, including bits of litter. As you keep driving, these might be thrown up by the car in front of you. The individual hits by themselves aren’t serious. But multiply that by the thousands of tiny stones that may have been striking your car over years of driving, then it gets really ugly. It won’t affect anything serious on your car, of course. However, it can have a huge effect on how your car will look. The paint, especially in those aforementioned sections, will appear as though it’s been through hell and back, significantly more scratched, and have become dull or worn. It may also have an impact on the resale value of your car, because who’d buy it in its post-road rash condition? Could You Prevent Road Rash? Unless you’ve paid to have an expensive protective film or wrap over your car’s paintwork, then road rash is a natural part of a car ownership experience. You can’t prevent it from happening, but there are things you can do to stop it from getting worse. You could consider choosing a different road to drive on, preferably one that doesn’t have a lot of loose stones or gravel. Changing your driving style might lessen the impact and frequency of micro road rashes. One of the main reasons why you’re getting a lot of road rash is perhaps due to you tailgating the car in front a bit too closely, or if you’re driving too quickly. This makes it so that debris will kick up from the road much more frequently from the car in front, and will strike your car harder at speed, respectively. If you regularly detail and wash your car, you can try to polish and wax the parts of your car that often fall victim to road rash. Polishing may smooth out some of the smaller chips and scratches, as the wax forms a protective layer over the paintwork. The other option is simply to not drive your car as much, which may be impractical. Thankfully, at least, road rash damage can be fixed. How Can You Fix Road Rash? There are more than a few ways to fix road rash on your car. The first thing that might come to mind would be a full repainting job, which is a very expensive task to undertake. Depending on the type of paint, and with the quality that you desire, it can cost thousands just for the frontal section of your car. That’s not to mention the weeks you’ll have to wait as your car is being painted. The good news is that there is a cheaper alternative – Chipex. This comes in the form of a paint touch-up kit, which can be found for less than £40. Chipex is able to colour match the exact paint of your car, but also make it so that a repair is very easy to do. Even for a novice, you can have your car un-roadrashed in no time at all. Step 1: Order your paint touch-up kits from Chipex. We can have your car’s paint matched simply by using your registration plate, make and model or colour code. Step 2: When you have the touch-up repair ready, get your car cleaned up. Use some water, mixed in with mild soap. Having washed your car, you should then dry it out thoroughly with a microfibre towel. Step 3: Now it’s time to apply the touch-up paint. Apply the paint with a micro brush or smear the paint carefully, and let it dry. Based on the quantity of paint that you used, it may take a few minutes for it to dry – 5 to 15 minutes for most repairs. Step 4: After this, we can start to apply the blending solution on top of the touched-up paint to finalise its finish. You can use a cloth or paper towel to rub the blending solution over the paint, gently so using only very light pressure across the surface. Do this until all the excess paint is gone and the new paint blends with the existing paint. Step 5: Let the blending solution dry, and start with polishing your car. This will smoothen out the surfaces, while also removing any final imperfections and impurities that may remain. Add a bit of polishing compound onto a microfibre cloth, and gently rub it over the touched-up area. When the polish has dried up, use another microfibre cloth to wipe it off.

It’s hard not to dread the moment when you’ve realised that there’s an unsightly ding on your car’s paint. The thought of “what and how could this had happened?” rushes through your mind. Even more important, you’re now wondering how to fix this. It might only be a matter of cosmetic damage, but it’s still unpleasant enough to cause an affliction in your heart. You tried polishing the scratch or chip in the paintwork… It doesn’t work. You search through every cabinet and drawer for a permanent marker or fingernail polish that matches the colour of your car…To no avail. But “aha!”, you do have a motorbike, and there is a bottle of paint repair that’s very similar. However, is motorcycle touch-up paint really the same as a car’s touch-up paint? Looking Through The Layers In short, yes, indeed a motorcycle’s touch-up paint – and the painting process and compounds as a whole – is similar to that of a car. Thus, you could use your motorcycle’s paint repair kit for your car in that aforementioned scenario. Or vice versa, a car’s paint touch-up can be used on a motorcycle, without you being able to spot any difference at all, so long as the paint itself matches in colour. This is since the art of painting a motorcycle and a car is interchangeable, albeit one needs to better distinguish between painting plastic and metal components. Otherwise, the type of paint and how you apply them is no different with either two or four wheels. Generally speaking, the painting application has several layers – or more specifically “coats” – painted on top of one another. Some Key Things To Remember So then, the paint in a car and motorcycle is generally very similar. In fact, some Chipex touch-up paint repair kits work on both. The only thing to remember is trying to find one that matches either your four- or two-wheeler vehicle. It can be made a bit easier for some brands. One great example is BMW,, which is a popular maker of both cars and bikes. A few of its paint options between both vehicles are shared, or at the very least, quite similar. For instance, ‘dunkelblau’ – or dark blue, is more or less the same on either a BMW motorcycle or a car for a darkish blue colour. If you happen to have a paint touch-up bottle or pen for your dark blue BMW bike, then it could very well match nicely with your dark blue BMW car. There is, in addition, one other important caveat to consider – flex agent, or flex additive. Flex additive is a chemical compound that you’d normally mix in the primer, or sometimes the upper layer of the clear coat. As the name suggests, a flex agent helps the paint to flex or bend without the now-hardened paintwork cracking. It’s worth noting that some motorcycle parts are quite bendy. This is especially so with the plastic bodywork and panels around the fenders or along the side. All of which can bend around under pressure, although this is ordinary. A car’s bodywork doesn’t do this to an extreme degree, which is why paints on a motorbike can sometimes have flex agent. The thicker the coats of paint you apply, the more likely it is to crack when the bodywork flexes. Nonetheless, paint technology has moved on quite a bit. As a result, Chipex paint won’t crack easily when the surfaces under it are flexing. So, you wouldn’t have to be concerned about this too badly. Plus, if you’re using touch-up paint only for only a small area like a thin scratch or a tiny stone chip, then the thought of flex additives isn’t something you ought to worry about. Conclusion In summary, you can indeed use motorcycle touch-up paint for your car, and vice versa. Although we’d still recommend getting a proper touch-up repair solution to better match your exact vehicle, it could be interchanged in a pinch, or if you can’t find the specific one for your car or motorcycle. At the end of the day, whether or not the colour matches is the only thing you need to think over.

As they say, there’s no such thing as absolute perfection in this world. Touching up your car’s paint is no different. No matter how good of a job you think you did, and regardless of how easy the repair kit was to use, the end result may or may not be noticeably different than what your car should’ve looked like brand new. But those pesky stone chips and scratches have to be filled in someday, right. The most common ‘oopsie’ that we’ll all face while touching up our car’s poor paint is the dreaded blob. That feeling when you’ve applied just a bit too much touch-up, that it now looks like your car’s got pimples. This newly erected mound of paint sits annoyingly far up over where the rest of the car’s surface should’ve been. So, how do we go about peeling off this unsightly paint blob How Do We Get Rid Of Excess Paint? If you have used our Chipex paint, the excess can be removed with our blending solution.

Touching up your car’s paint has never been this cheap, easy, or as effective. In the olden days, even a tiny stone chip might require sending your car over to a paint shop, and you’ll soon leave there with a hefty repair bill in your hands. Nowadays, though, you can go to a website, and order an entire repair kit to match your car’s exact colour for as little as £39.95 And that goes for the best touch-up solutions on the market! With an hour or two of your time, you can have that chip or scratch filled in without leaving your garage. Technology has truly come a long way. But despite this ease, some questions do linger that remain unanswered, and one that might make this touching up process a whole lot less confidence-inspiring on the surface. One such puzzle to solve is the subject around whether or not your paint touch-up solution shrinks when it dries up. Naturally, you’d want to know this, along with the complex science around paint touch-ups to make sure you do as good of a job as possible. Thankfully, we aim to answer this, step by step. First, let’s look at how you’d go about touching up your car’s paint.. Step 1: Before we can begin to touch up the paint, we’ll need to clean the soon-to-be touched up area. This involves getting some water and a mild car washing soap. You could instead use rubbing alcohol to get rid of a protective wax layer. Either way, dry the area thoroughly with a microfibre cloth after washing it. Step 2: The next step would be applying the touch-up paint, as per the Chipex instructions sheet supplied with our kit. Step 3: The length of time it would take for the paint to dry will vary depending on temperature and humidity.. Chipex touch-up kits can require as little as just 5 minutes to dry in the best conditions. Step 4: After this, we can start to apply the blending solution on top of the touched-up paint to finalise its finish. You can use a cloth to rub the blending solution over the paint, gently so using only very light pressure across the surface. Do this until all the excess paint is gone and the new paint blends with the existing paint. Step 5: Once the Blend solution is dry apply the polish supplied for a permanent shine. Do Touch-Up Paints Shrink? With those five steps outlined, you know now roughly the processes at work when doing a full paint touch-up. However, that’s not yet answered our question. For this, let’s take a look back at Step 2, in how during the application of the touch-up paint, you’re implored to wait for each layer of the paint to dry before adding another coat (and more) on top? Well, that’s because like any other type of liquid or fluid, paint does indeed shrink when it dries. The overall volume will decrease once the paint dries up from while it was still wet. Nevertheless, this is never an issue during paint touch-up repairs, as it drying up won’t affect the finished look of the final paint at all, nor does it cause complexities. The only thing that’s required of you is to add another layer or more on top of now-shrunken coating to make up for the lost volume, and thus ensure that the touch-up area is level with the rest of the car’s surface. This is one reason why you’re asked to let one dry before adding another one. The number of layers you’ll need to add will depend on how deep the chip is. If you add one coat, let it dry, and there’s still a fairly deep pit once that first coat is dry, you may have to add another layer. Let that one dry, and maybe add another one (or more) coatings on top as necessary. After that, you can proceed with the following steps as if nothing ever happened. Conclusion In summary, we can say that yes, your car’s touch up paint will shrink when it dries. But this is a normal step of the process in touching up your car anyways. Depending on which repair kit you go with, and what sort of paint mix they use, you may need some minutes, hours, or upwards to let the paint completely dry, and for the shrinkage to fully manifest. All you need to do is let the paint shrink and dry, and then keep reapplying more layers of paint on top to even out the chipped or scratched area, and bring it to level out with the intact surface of your car’s paintwork.

Deep narrow scratches that are down to the paint or primer can be fixed with Chipex™. It is important during the blending solution step to apply very light pressure on the cloth so as to not remove excessive paint from the scratch. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

When cars are painted they are finally sprayed with a clear coat lacquer to create a protective shield to the paint as well as giving it a shine. If the vehicle is lightly scratched in the clear coat it can look far worse than it really is as the clear coat lacquer will go opaque / white in colour. In many cases you can either use a Scratch Remover or take the car to a body shop where they will use a buffing machine to remove this damage. In cases where the damage cannot be removed by a rubbing compound you can carefully apply a small quantity of paint into the damaged area and then remove the excess with the Chipex™ polish which has a mild rubbing compound in it. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

The Chipex™ system will NOT work well on this type of damage due to the amount of paint that has been removed and in this instance the vehicle should be taken to a body shop for the panel to be repaired and sprayed. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Whilst the Chipex™ system will not make an invisible repair on this type of damage it can go a long way in masking it. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Heavily keyed paint work is difficult to repair and where the car has been vandalised down the side with a very long key mark it is recommended that you take the car to a body shop. However if you wish to mask the damage you can use the Chipex kit to achieve this, however it will not be an invisible repair and will still be noticeable. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Road Rash is where the vehicle’s paint work has been peppered by stones causing a large quantity of stone chips. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

As road rash is in a concentrated area you can quite simply smear the special paint all over the damaged area and then remove the excess paint with the blending solution. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

The newly applied paint is not removed as the chemicals very gently remove only a very small cross section of paint at a time. However if you were to apply an excessive amount of the solution and apply excessive pressure to the cloth you can remove the paint you have applied. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes the system will work on deep stone chips, however you will have to build up the paint in layers to achieve a good level. This can be done by either building up in layers or applying a large blob of paint and then letting it dry and then blending it down with the solution. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

The vast majority of chips are not visible after painting unless you are very close to the bodywork and looking for them. When inspecting the car from a normal distance of over one metre the damage will be very hard to see and in some cases invisible. Please read our testimonials from customers that have written to us to get a good understanding of this. Please bear in mind that whilst the Chipex™ product is extremely effective as a cosmetic repair it will not achieve the same result as would be achieved by removing all the paint and re spraying as carried out by a professional body shop. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Chipex™ works especially well on dark and solid colours including metallic paint. When using Silver and Gold metallic paint there can be some shade variation due to the metallic particles within the paint which can cause the applied paint to be darker in some light conditions. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

Yes. Whilst this is the most difficult finish due to the complexity of the paint we have achieved very good results with our paint system. In the case of Tri colours the kit comes with two paints so as to achieve the most original finish. The instructions in our kit outline the best method to fix these finishes Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.

You can use Chipex™ on Matt paintwork but you must NOT use the polish within the kit or any other form of polish on a car that is painted in Matt paintwork as it will lose its matt finish. Order using your colour code here. Find your car colour code here.