[RaidersFan]

I live in an area that gets road sanded with pumice all winter long. As a result, our 2-year old X5 now looks like someone blasted it with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. Paint is Black Sapphire. I just bought the car, and will touch these up and put one of those clear 3M masks on the car.

How best to do the touch up and blend in the paint? There are tons of tiny pinhole marks that won't buff out, as well as some bigger pinhead marks. Obviously I need to purchase touch-up paint: what is the procedure beyond that to make it look good?

I found out the hard way: black is a poor color choice in areas that use crushed lava to keep the roads grippy! Just try washing it by hand without scratching the clearcoat at some point.

Does anyone think this is a defective paint job? The car is only 27 months old (this is it's 3rd winter). My Subaru had nearly 5 winters on it and around 10% the number of chips, and was almost the same color. I thought that was bad enough.

[Detailed Image]

Originally Posted by dawgcatching

I live in an area that gets road sanded with pumice all winter long. As a result, our 2-year old X5 now looks like someone blasted it with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. Paint is Black Sapphire. I just bought the car, and will touch these up and put one of those clear 3M masks on the car.

How best to do the touch up and blend in the paint? There are tons of tiny pinhole marks that won't buff out, as well as some bigger pinhead marks. Obviously I need to purchase touch-up paint: what is the procedure beyond that to make it look good?

I found out the hard way: black is a poor color choice in areas that use crushed lava to keep the roads grippy! Just try washing it by hand without scratching the clearcoat at some point.

Does anyone think this is a defective paint job? The car is only 27 months old (this is it's 3rd winter). My Subaru had nearly 5 winters on it and around 10% the number of chips, and was almost the same color. I thought that was bad enough.

Sorry to hear about your issues! The best way to repair this if you're going to invest in the paint protection film/clear bra after is to repaint it. Otherwise, while it will be a much cheaper solution, touch up paint will only improve the looks of it and not make it nearly perfect. If you decide to go the touchup route, I would recommend Dr. Colorchip. You can read this thread for a lot of info with photos of the paint chips before and after the member used the touchup paint, so it'll give you a good idea of how it will look. Although it's grey, at least you'll see roughly what it should look like fixed after the Dr. Colorchip kit is used.

Paint chips and scratch repair question - RESULTS

Hope that helps!
Ivan @ DI