PaulNY

The past two weeks my Royal Blue FWD has been getting some really randomly placed paint chips.

First one I noticed about 2 weeks ago, its a nice sized chip on the inner edge of the driver side view mirror. Totally noticeable to me, so I went to Acura and promptly bought touch up paint (havnt applied yet, waiting for a good weather week since my car stays outside)...totally random spot for the paint to chip off

Now today, after I had my car washed, I noticed 3 dots of paint that are off on my driver side back door door, right at the start of the door under the window.

Its really weird how I've had the car since September, and now only the past 2 weeks I've been getting some chips. Driving habits are normal...visiting same places as I have been


I'll post pictures in the morning.

Anyone else getting really random chips?

winstrolvtec

Sounds like a nice sized rock or debris hit the inside of the side mirror and then the same area of the rear door, they bounce or roll along the car surface, usually on the highway. Sorry to hear it, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Best of luck.

bmode

Odd, I have that one too! Driver side mirror top paint chip. There's no way a rock could of hit mine, I'm rather suspicious on this one?

bmode

Here's some poor night time shots of my chip, I'll take some tomorrow during daylight.

PaulNY

Ok, I went out and took some pics





Better pic:





It just sucks that I had my accord for 2+ years, and had nothing more than some swirl marks and light scratches...these are nice pieces of paint off entirely which is a lot more noticeable :-/

winstrolvtec

Could be from an ice scrapper or some kind of scrubbing brush, on the side mirror. The others maybe zippers, buttons, branches, etc. I don't know how or what your cleaning habits are, regardless, it doesn't look like something that can't be nicely touched up.

Bmode, yours looks like a paint flaw or thin paint issue, becuase it's on the seems, but it's hard to tell.

PetesTL

From my experience, Jap cars in general seem to have paint issues....my last 2 Lexus, Infiniti FX45 and '04 TL all had problems of thinning paint, overspray, and uneveness. My previous 3 BMW's and Porsche Cayenne, however, all had flawless paint jobs.

PaulNY

Ugh, I found two more (same size) chips on my passenger side, just above the front fender. I dont know where these are coming from, and how they just randomly appear.

BleuM&M

Royal, I'm going to hazard a guess on those smudges and condemn that car wash. To me, it looks as if the brushes got too close, weren't 'brushless', or didn't have enough soap/water on them and burned your clearcoat. Brushes can also hold crap taken off cars before you and flail your ride with it. Rule of thumb, if those brushes aren't shedding suds and water like a retriever shaking off a bath, stay away. Hopefully those marks will come off with some scratch remover.

As for the chips, I'm a big fan of ClearBra. I was wavering on doing it again with my new TL but you and bmode have swayed me. There are some great deals on the 3M stuff at EBay.

jbracefan1977

those are nasty.... sorry.. good luck..

guytdt

Gosh! How could that happen?
I'm a bit nervous about paint quality.
Last weekend when I bought my TL, my saleman told me that they paint it 9 times and it comes out as the best in the industry. Is it true?

PaulNY

Only went to hand car washes, or did the 'self car wash' with the sprayer with soap/rinse functions, really try to avoid conventional car washes. I found a few more, of the same size little nicks since my last post, and fear it might be the paint since all the nicks are the same size and cluster together. Of course rocks or something similar might have played a part, but all of a sudden as soon as the warmer weather hit? i had the car pristine from September until March. it seems these nicks are only happening from the door handles and up (right above the crease line)

BleuM&M

Well the only other thing I can think of is that your ride inspires certain persons to rub themselves all over it. Honda did have a rep for soft paint several years back, but my experience has been that the finish is tough. I had an 03 TL-S in that crazy Aegean Blue Pearl that I never waxed, had for 3 years and other than a few stone chips, was still deep and lustrous. It was always garaged and treated to weekly brushless car washes.

winstrolvtec

Im not yet familiar with this model but soft paint or not, it wont remove itself, something is causing that. Sometimes the seems on the plastic painted parts of the car will flake but usually on the inner part that's not noticeable, 99.9% of the time it's not on the metal. Make sure no one is leaning against it, consider rings and watches, etc. Whoever cleans it may be brushing against it reaching for the roof and I noticed you have a dangly object on your wrist. Just excercise excessive caution, and any passengers advised to please refrain from putting your hands out the window.

mmaxamize1

My 2008 TL has numerous chips all over the front bumper and hood and then a few scattered throughout the rest of the car. I complained to the dealer and they just said that since there are no known recalls about the paint there's nothing that could be done. Other than those chips there are NO scatches on the bumpers and just a few small scratches on the skirts below the doors. Those were due to my small kids dragging their backpacks against them.

I called Acura today and was told the same thing that the manager from the dealer said so I'm not too sure what to do. I think the quality of the paint sucks. I'm hoping to generate enough noise that they just work with me to fix to just shut me up...

hdcolumbus

Noticed I had three or four oddly placed chips around the passenger side back door. Very deep too. Guess I'll have to get them fixed when I get my rear bumper repaired from the grocery cart that hit it at about 15 MPH during a wind storm a few weeks ago