DIY Stone Chip Removal - UPDATE Front Bumper

B

Benny88

Member
 Wigan
I assume a common problem on the e85/86 Z4 is the mass of stone chips that accumulate at the back of the side skirt, just infront of the back wheel. I dont know about yours but mine was peppered :thumbsdown:

So after following a guide on Detailing World i decided to give it a go.

Link to guide, just the stone chip repair section, 2nd bit;

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=217520&highlight=stone+chip+repair

Heres a before pic of the nearside, as i forgot to take a before of the offside lol

StoneChipsBefore.jpg


And heres the after of the offside, it looked the same as above before

StoneChipsAfter.jpg


Much better :thumbsup:

I used a Halfords touch up set which the previous owner bought, I mixed the base colour and clear coat 50:50, applied in a circular motion with a microfibre cloth, left 24 hours then buffed off gently using a Dual Action polisher.

Now i'm happy with the way its turned out im going to do the nearside skirt and the front bumper as per the guide.

I hope this will be of use to you guys, its not perfect but its 100% better and much cheaper than a respray :thumbsup:
 
To be honest I was dubious at first but its very straight forward to do and its a permanent fix not just a temporary touch up, although clay block may remove some of the shallow ones but time will tell on that one.

One thing I should add is that I cleaned the area of the chips with thinners before applying the paint, to remove all previous waxs etc and hopefully make the paint adhere correctly.

I'm not sure how effective this technique would be on silver though, with silver being a right pain to colour match.
 
Seen that thread before but to nervous to try, but now I've got a spare pair of skirts so I'm going to practice on them as I have nothing to lose. :D
 
I was nervous about trying it but I thought if it looks terrible I can just use a bit of thinners on a cloth and take it all off again.

Might be a few weeks til I do the bumper because I need to order some paint as i dont think half a touch up pen will be enough :lol:

Will update when i've done the front bumper with before and after pics :thumbsup:
 
How about fitting some mudflaps or applying some 3M film. People scoff at mudflaps but I fitted them on the Zed to minimise this kind of gravel rash. On the Z3 I have the magnetic stone guards :)

Tim.
 
It crossed my mind to apply some paint protection film after it was done tbh, but I only do 5000 miles a year so it will be a long time before its that bad again. I'm never too sure about the look of PPF either when it gets polish/wax/dirt build up around the edges :thumbsdown:
 
Finally got round to sorting the front bumper out, I decided to just do the lower section at first as thats where the bulk of the chips are and to see how well it turned out, I may do the rest of the bumper if it looks odd after polishing and waxing

Befores;

Bumperbefore1.jpg


Bumperbefore2.jpg



And the afters, again not 100% perfect but looks sooo much better from looking at it from standing

Bumperafter1.jpg


Bumperafter2.jpg


I've also been busy machine polishing the car, not to the extent that Cibbers did :thumbsup: but it is looking miles better than before, quick pic of yesterdays efforts on the bonnet, will post up pics in a new thread when its done.

Bonnetreflections.jpg
 
z4-cheapskate said:
What kind of mileage did you have to do to get that level of mini stone chips ?

I guess higher speed driving makes it works.
Click to expand...


I would say road conditions / quality, more so than mileage


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
z4-cheapskate said:
What kind of mileage did you have to do to get that level of mini stone chips ?

I guess higher speed driving makes it works.
Click to expand...

Its done 45k, i've only owned the car since July so i'm not sure how or where it has been driven.

I finished a full detail on it yesterday, 2 stage machine polish, glaze & wax, the glaze has filled and masked the remainder of the stone chips so it now looks superb :)

Will get some pics up when it stops raining!
 
Benny88 said:
z4-cheapskate said:
What kind of mileage did you have to do to get that level of mini stone chips ?

I guess higher speed driving makes it works.
Click to expand...

Its done 45k, i've only owned the car since July so i'm not sure how or where it has been driven.

I finished a full detail on it yesterday, 2 stage machine polish, glaze & wax, the glaze has filled and masked the remainder of the stone chips so it now looks superb :)

Will get some pics up when it stops raining!
Click to expand...
Excellent work... :thumbsup:
 
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