i found so many more chips than i realize i had and some that i guess they tried to touch up, because i saw one or two little white areas too, and i read that the mazda yellow has a pretty bad fading problem

anyway since there are sooo many and from what i read on autopia.com, fixing them is like a week long project, i may just take it to get done professionally, and ask that they match up the color as best they can without using the mazda one.

damn

oh yeah, and i cleaned the interior too... and found... (used cars are so fun!!)... a little ziplock baggie with some pills! i took them, they didn't do anything cool. I'm so kidding... no i didn't take them. they looked like simple vitamins or something tho, they weren't all little with dragons or peace signs on them or anything.

 

The best paint you will ever have on the car is the paint from the factory. Unless it really bugs you or there is a major problem with the clearcoat/color I wouldn't mess with it (IMHO).

If you only notice the chips when you get down close to the finish, and don't see them normally, I would just make a quick touchup pass. There are several good threads on chip touchup, generally using a toothpick to place a VERY small quantity of paint in the chip. Up close, you will still see the chip, but it is more protected and it is less visible being the same color as the paint.

You probably bought the car to drive, not to show. The chips mean you are driving it and having fun. In a few years, if the paint does fade, then invest the $2,000 on a paint job.

 

Could have been worse:

Family discovers used car has cocaine stashed in tank

Associated Press
Mar. 29, 2005 03:30 PM

SLIDELL, La. - A reliable family car suddenly developed a tendency to decelerate, leading to the discovery that it had been driven for years with $40,000 worth of cocaine stashed in the gas tank.

A suburban New Orleans family had bought the 1996 Toyota Camry from a used car lot in 1997.

"They hadn't had any major mechanical difficulties with it until last week," he sheriff's spokesman James Hartman said Tuesday.
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When the car started losing speed, it was taken to a mechanic, who discovered two bricks of cocaine wrapped around the vehicle's fuel line. The wrapping had apparently come loose recently.

The car's owners are not involved in drug trafficking, Hartman stressed. Their names were withheld in case the owners of the stash come looking for them.

"Our investigators will now attempt to work backward and see where that vehicle had originated," Hartman said

 

I can't say it enough....CLEAR-BRA. I have them on my RX-8 and Mazdaspeed Miata. If I didn't have them, the fronts of both cars would be peppered with chips. The paint is REALLY easy to chip!

 

LOL. Go ask Alice, I think she'll know!

 

she probably took the blue pill, that's why nothing happened :o

 

same here i don't even bother looking at the front end really close because seeing all the paint chips hurt.

 

Unfortunately, it is the worst on black cars.
The primer level is white, so even a microscopic chip is visible from some distance.
Add to that the frailty of Mazda's paint and you can imagine what my car looks like from the front.

My car came with a clear bra and it looks like crap on black paint. Made the front look dirty all of the time, so I had it removed.

I'm going to take the entirety of next Sunday to fill all of them up by hand and then buff with a wool pad and 3M finishing compound to flatten the "blobs".

 

I second that... I have the clear bra on my '04 V-Red. I live in Colorado where they spread gravel on the road for snow and ice control. I get peppered with gravel for days after a snowfall, but NO CHIPS!!!!

 

I have a few chips that I notice, and it bugs me only when i wash my car. My door just got kicked over the weekend by some haters, and I had my friend at a body shop repair it, depending on who paints your car and the kindof paint they use, mine came out very good. I can't tell the diff. You can always try touch up paint, wet sanding, and buffing.

 

Hey
Do you hand wash your car or machine wash it. What do people think?

 

Never, ever machine wash a car that you care about.
The "touchless" fabric is loaded with crap from the cars before you.
The water is recycled.
The detergent is acidic.
The "one-size-fits-all" guide rails and wheel brushes aren't. They will damage the lower half of the car.
The deepest recesses of the car (near the emblems on the trunk lid, under the mirrors, etc.), don't get washed so when the drying guys go over the car, they drag dirt over the paint with their cheap, cotton-poly blend rags which would scratch the paint even if they weren't dirty.
I could go on...

 

I agree that if you are picky about your car's finish, car washes are inappropriate for a variety of reasons, mostly surrounding contaminants that turn the brushes/sponges/cloths (which physically contact your car) into a form of sandpaper.

For a thorough cleaning I wash (and wax) the car by hand. However this is a time consuming process that I can only do every three or four months.

In between, I use a thing called "Laser Wash" attached to the local gas station. There is no physical contact with the car. No brushes, sponges or cloth of any kind. Undercarriage wash, soap, rinse water and wax are all applied as a spray, with the rinse being under high pressure. The car is dried with a hot air blower.

In general it does a pretty good job if the car is not too dirty. During my hand wash/wax I get to examine my RX-8s finish pretty closely and have not noticed any ill-effects from the spray wash.

However, for reference I am not a purist. While I use high quality cleaning materials, I did not claybar and zaino my RX-8 when I first got it. So my comments may not be appropriate if you are looking to have/maintain a "car show" level finish.

 

I wash my car every time it is dirty. If that is 3 times a week, then so be it.
Typically, it is once a week.

I can get it totally clean in 20 minutes. It is simple.
Wash using only microfiber sponges and rags and use a leaf blower to dry it. Spotless and quick.

 

hey again

when i said i thought about taking it somewhere to get done... i just meant, have them do the touching up for me. not a whole new paint job!! hehe. i didn't buy the car to show. anyway if i got a paint job i'd get like, some green color, because green's my favorite but i didn't like the 8 in the dark green that it comes in. so not a neon green, more like... in don't know, grass green or something. that'd be cool.

off track, sorry. i just meant that i read the threads/autopian how-to's on fixing paint chips and thought, dayumn... that sounds like a lot of work and the sanding part scares me, and i don't have all the right stuff or the know how. the "stuff" wouldn't be hard to get but i'm afraid of f-ing it up. so i thought maybe i could pay a shop to just fix the chips "right" for me.

plus since the mazda yellow is known to fade (and i see a spot on my car with a dab of white... hmmm...) i thought the body shop might be able to match it up to a yellow that doesn't fade, since obviously if they do body work, they aren't going to paint someone's whole hood or whatever with a color that fades!!

anyway thanks!

 

'Wash using only microfiber sponges and rags and use a leaf blower to dry it. Spotless and quick.'

Leaf Blower to dry it! What a great idea!

 

Leaf Blowers work great. Also, do your final rinse with no nozzle on the hose and low water pressure. A smooth film of water just slides right off the car.

I did my first full wash of 2005 last weekend. Boy does she look pretty. The Zaino held up all winter. (Of course she sits in the garage on bad weather days, so maybe that doesn't mean much!)

I'm definitely getting a Clear-Bra for the front bumper, headlights, fogs and wing mirrors. I'm sick of fixing chips. It should be near invisible on a Lightning Yellow. I'm not doing the lower hood though. Don't want a line.

SlinkyGirl78,
Where did you hear/read that the Lightning Yellow fades? Someplace authoritative? I'd expect a high quality protectant or even wax would prevent that.

 

I think if there is one think I would do over again, realtive to my RX 8, it would have been to spend a little more money and got the clear bra. I am disappointed I did not, and well never make this mistake again- on a low slung sports car. I do not think the paint is any problem, it's the highways of CA, they are just to crowded, trucks with no tarps, police motorcycles that speed by at 90mph +, weaving right in-front of you kick up debris- it's a mess

 

on the rock chip thread, on hea', in the show and shine forum..

 

LOL

... and the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything at all...

 

Just found that post, by Mr. Wiggles.

FWIW my yellow touchup paint is still yellow. It's been on the car for 6 months or more. YMMV I guess.