Soft paint / stone chips

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Stu22

Active Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2017
Messages
97
Location
West Bergholt
Car
C300h AMG-L PP, ILS, night pack, real cow and 19’s
Bad on me I know but haven't cleaned my car for the last 12000 miles, so decided yesterday was the day - Was surprised to see the amount of paint damage already on the bonnet and front wings - car is a C300h in Obsidian Black, 14000 miles and 5 months old.
Is the paint that Mercedes use soft? I had always heard that Mercedes paints were particularly hard but obviously not......
 
I’m not sure but from past experience hard paints give worse chips due to their hardness this was particularly so on metallic or pearlescent paint finishes.

Base colour cars like my Polar White E350 seem to suffer less.

I hasten to add that I have no expertise the above is just from previous cars I have owned.

Robin
 
Is the paint that Mercedes use soft?
Nope, it's extremely hard - just try polishing it! The reason it shows up is that the base coat even for Obsidian Black is very light, and with the black colour coat small chips really show up.

To do 14k miles in 5 months you must be living on a motorway. Driving in that environment will kill the paint on the front of any car.
 
Nope, it's extremely hard - just try polishing it! The reason it shows up is that the base coat even for Obsidian Black is very light, and with the black colour coat small chips really show up.

To do 14k miles in 5 months you must be living on a motorway. Driving in that environment will kill the paint on the front of any car.

Yes, seem like a white or cream base coat.
I commute from Colchester to London every day along the lovely A12 plus business trips etc., so do rack up the miles
 
To try and help and NOT to to patronise ;^)

Mercedes paint is very hard paint, it is water-based and lacquered. Result equals a very high standard of finish and not easy to spoil. YOU need to check whether you have dented/chipped the lacquer or gone right through to the paint/primer? Halfords (yes I know) actually sell a very good chip repair kit that comprises of paint & lacquer and some some tools. WARNING: if you are not confident at this, try it out somebody else's car first. You can make minor damage look worse in one small stroke.

Chipsaway (others are available) are the experts in this kind of thing and do produce some great results (awaits tales of - they ruined my car). For £250 they did a cracking job on my wife's Black X5 this included a handlebar scratch down a rear door that was through to the metal and several bonnet chips + some carpark dings. I would say money well spent and a year on it still looks great.

Stone Chips. If you are doing 70 mph ;^) and the stone heading towards your bonnet is doing 70mph, you have a 140mph impact speed. That will cause damage to almost any surface/finish. Sadly with our pot holed and gritted roads there is little to be done to avoid this. Some colours do show up damage more than others = Black being one of the worst, closely followed by Red.

As said above Motorway Miles play havoc with paintwork with Mercedes possibly fairing slightly better than some other makes out there.
 
Fortunately Its a company car that will probably go back at just over 2 years and get replaced, so unlikely I'll ever do anything about it.
It is a shame however as black cars look lovely when clean but do seem to attract every little mark but then again I knew that when ordering Obsidian black against my own instincts!
 
I am not even going to attempt to argue with you here and welcome your "pedantic" apology ;^) I tried to read the explanation but gave up around where the author seems to start arguing with him/herself. Is a ton of feathers going to hit the ground faster than a ton of air, when dropped from the same aeroplane at the same time?.
 
It used to be the case that some dark paint colours were soft due to a higher percentage of pigment but that should no longer be the case as even plain colours now have a clear top coat.
 
OK, lets do this. two cars hit each other head on , both going at 50 mph. Their closing speed was 100 mph right.

Wrong.

Discuss.
 

I would/do take some convincing here if, I am to believe that 1 + 1 does not = 2.

So two cars traveling at 50mph towards each other have a closing speed of 100mph?

I always thought that the ‘closing speed’ would translate into the ‘impact’ speed? It seems not.

My brain is old and muddled but I struggle as I write this to comprehend that I have this wrong? I need a simpler explanation. But I suspect that it will do nothing for the OPs stone chips. ;^)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I can't be bothered trying to read that thing again but is it making the point that there is big a difference between hitting something that is an immovable object and hitting another car with crush zones. Don't see what any of that has to do with stone chips though.
 
Bad on me I know but haven't cleaned my car for the last 12000 miles, so decided yesterday was the day - Was surprised to see the amount of paint damage already on the bonnet and front wings - car is a C300h in Obsidian Black, 14000 miles and 5 months old.
Is the paint that Mercedes use soft? I had always heard that Mercedes paints were particularly hard but obviously not......

You drive too close to the car ahead of you! ;-) ...seems to be the norm in the UK


My car has 7000 miles and not a mark!
 
I agree, too close to the car in front causes more stone chips.
Mb have clearcoat hard lacquer, I assume the harder the coating the more brittle it will be , a stone at 70mph probably shatters it like glass.
Obsidian black responds well to a touch in but don’t use the brush provided in the bottle, get a no. 2 artists brush and don’t put too much paint on or it will stand out, but forget the lacquer as you won’t see it anyway.
 
You should have got PPF on a brand new car
 
As I said previously guys, it's a company car so I don't really care too much - just seems to chips far easier than any of my previous cars that I would have also driven too close to the car in front! :rolleyes:
 

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