Hi Everyone,

I drive shy of 20K miles a year and a lot of it is in New York and New England. Winters are rough and there's lots of salt, sand, etc.

My 09 Fit has been through 3 winters and plenty of road construction in the summer and now has a decent number of paint chips on the hood. I have in the past bought the touch up paint from the dealer and used this but I can see where in some spots even that is rusting through.

When this first started happening I think I looked into the 3M clear stuff but it seemed expensive and somewhat difficult to install. It also seemed like the target market was high end porsche, bmw, etc.

Anyway the damage is done and clearing it will help for the future but isn't really going to do anything about existing chips.

I've been thinking of just wrapping the hood in some sort of vinyl and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I don't want to do carbon fiber. My car is storm silver. I'm thinking a silver or a darker grey type vinyl film. I realize it's not going to match but I don't want it to look too ridiculous.

It's also not out of the question to just get the hood repainted once it gets really bad, with some kind of tougher paint like a dupont imron or something like that.

Anyways I'm looking for thoughts, past experiences, suggestions if anyone has them.

 

http://www.dipyourcar.com/

 

OK so when you buy that as a spray is it more or less the same finished texture and hardness as when you use plasti-dip for tool handles?

How much does it stick to the paint below?

 

Its a smooth matte finish. It sticks very well to clean paint.

 

If I were you, I would do something to stop the rusting first.

Mask around the rusted spots with painters tape. Mask as closely as possible so as not to allow any to affect good paint around the chipped/rusted areas.

Get a new pencil with a full eraser that hasn't been rounded by use. Glue a small piece of sandpaper to the eraser head, about the same size as the eraser head and make sure it's dry and glued well before using. Use that as a tool to try and sand out the rust from the chipped areas as good as possible.

Use either touch-up paint, a primer suitable for metal/autos, or go to Walmart and get a can of the rust-stopping paint they sell. I forget the name of it, but it's like a black colored primer-like paint/sealant, and it's generally kept in or near the automotive department. (If I go to Walmart anytime soon I will check it out and post the actual name of the stuff... unless you find it first.)

It is a spray paint, and it not only covers bad areas, but it completely stops rust from continuing in those areas, or from ever occurring to begin with.

Leave your areas around the chips masked, but mask further to prevent any paint or sealant from getting on good paint... obviously.

After you've removed the rust and either touched-up or sealed the areas, then cover with vinyl, Plasti-Dip, or the cover of your choosing.

Actually, you may want to check into getting your hood painted. It's not really that expensive to do. I have full coverage and my insurance actually covers repairs such as chipping. Just tell your company it's from rocks bouncing into your hood from trucks. That's primarily where your type of damage comes from anyway.

Regardless, it's not a huge expense to have your hood painted. If you remove the hood yourself, and take it to them with the paint number it will cost even less. I think you'd be surprised at the cost in some instances.

Good luck... let us know what you decided, and how it turned out.

 

@annunc8

You raise good points and I was thinking to an extent along the same lines. I know I need to arrest the rust before I cover it with anything.

I'm at work but I will post up photos of the chips and the rust. It's like rust color on the metal, but it doesn't have the rust texture or rust creep that you'd see above a wheel well or anything like that.

Basically what alarmed me was prior to applying the touch up paint I had done a good job of removing all the visible rust. In some cases I applied touch up paint very soon after the chip was created. I generally try to wash my car once every week or two weeks at max and try to take a good look to see if there is anything new. One of the spots that I was sure I had done a good job cleaning out and carefully touched up is definitely showing some rust through the touch up paint. Another item is that the touch up paint instructions if you read them carefully call for the use of a clear coat product afterward, something that it seems most dealers s have all but forgotten exists.

I'm somewhat torn between short term and long term treatments and expectations. The car is coming up on 50K...I assume I'm going to take this car to around 100-120K and then get rid of it. I'm in my 20s and it works well for my needs and overall has been trouble free at a time in my life when I don't have lots of time to have a car in the shop, etc, but the car falls short in some areas. I tend to do more long distance driving and at times the fit seats leave a little bit to be desired. Anyways happy with the car but it's not a forever arrangement and I try to stay semi-conscious to what's prudent for resale down the line.

I have never found autobody paint to be as durable as the original factory paint. Akzo Nobel Sikkens, PPG, anytime I have had it applied or known someone that has had it applied it never seems any better than the factory paint and most of the time seems worse.

If I were going to do the hood myself and have the car indefinitely I'd get someone to paint it with a heavy duty paint like Dupont Imron. It's what they paint snow plows, dump trucks, truck cabs, etc with and its a much more durable type of paint but it doesn't have the same sort of metallic sparkle to it.

That said, I don't want to paint it something funky and then have to repaint prior to resale. For this reason I'm tempted to arrest the rust as you're suggesting, cover it with some kind of removable protectant that I can strip off prior to resale which will protect against further damage, and then keep things in a condition where I can either just touch the hood up with touch up paint or at worst have it repainted once.

Then again maybe people won't care about the hood on a car with 120K too much.

Either way, if I were going to do the plasti-dip I'd probably just paint it w dupont imron or something similar.

Thanks

 

Fix the rust, TouchUp paint, and then dip it. I have vinyl on my hood and dip on my bumper. I think the dip is a little more durable when applied thick and it's easy to repair. plus it dampens sound.

 

Sand, clean, apply rust prohibitive primer, apply touch up paint?

I had a ton of rust in the trunk of one of my prior cars so I just took a dremel to it and cleaned all the surface rust off and sprayed with rustoleum primer. I kept it from spreading pretty well considering I didn't even paint over it, I just left the primer in there. Had the car for about 5 years, but this was in Socal so not exactly a rust belt.

 

how bad is the chips and pits on your windscreen? i got quite a few on mine and the bonnet

 

Getting to be pretty bad. I got hit with a good sized pebble that flew off a dump truck. In the US there's a law that if they are moving more than 30 mph they have to be tarped, but not requirement for the operators to clean the outside of the dump body so some grit flew off of that and nailed the windshield. That was the first real bad hit. Then I was driving in Connecticut during a snow storm and got nailed with a rock that must have been been mixed in with the road salt. In addition to that there's plenty of smaller chips.

I actually hit a bird while going about 80 mph on the highway...amazingly the window didn't crack and it was a fairly big bird.

Either way my windshield is dying a slow death.

 

i feel the same i got two in the drivers line of sight and three on the passenger side and the bonnet is covered in small chips i had a really big one hit the a pillar passenger side and popped some paint off as it put a small dent in it i have touched them up just to stop them rusting but it is still very annoying especially as i dont tailgate

 

I've found that sometimes tailing is better than not. I've been 60-80 feet behind cars and have got hit with stuff they kick up.

I think overall the aerodynamic, ramp shape of the car makes it more vulnerable. Sometimes the rocks get a double play and clip the hood and the windshield.

 

yeah ive had that but i didnt get it with my 04 civic which was the same shape but slightly longer bonnet