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While I don't have any recommendations, at least the man said he'd take care of it........think about the other ways it could have gone. Hope you get it sorted my fellow NC driver.
If they clear coat the entire hood after patching up the area with the paint, there's a possibility that when you ever get it appraised the body guy might use that laser gun and detect a thicker coat and might question you if this hood was repainted completely. Keep your records!!!
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
Originally Posted by pdeacon
There is a company out of Florida called Dr. Color Chip. WWW.DRCOLORCHIP.COM. (no affiliation) I have used their product with good results. They provide advice on their website. I think it would be worth a try. If you are not satisfied you can always go the respray route. Their process is pretty simple. Good luck. Let us know how you make out.
And, at least here in Southern California, there are services that use this system, but are experts at it. They come to your home or office and do the repair. I would go that route if available where you live.
Mercedes sells touch up paint they DO NOT sell paint for repair shops to use. ANY repair shop worth even thinking about using isn't going to use touch up paint to spray your hood.
You asked a question as you lack the knowledge in regards to the repair correct? I was in the industry for many years. Touch up pain is not paint used to refinish your car. NO body shop will use touch up paint to paint your car no matter how small the spot. Every shop has a mixing system. That touch up paint is NOT an exact match to your car. Think of all the cars MB paints in that color and all the variables that effect paint. All your paint code does is give the shop the base color which from there needs to be tinted to match your exact color. there can also use variance cards which if you saw how off the colors could be you would understand.
A shop will repair the chip, blend the paint and re clear coat the hood. Once the hood is reeler coated anybody with knowledge will be able to tell it was done.
Th reason pearl/metallic touch up paints cant look good is because they are bruised which does not allow the pearl particles to be distributed properly. Pearl flakes and how they lay are what make the eye feel the paint matches. I would allow a touch up show to at least try as I said they only run about $100 and it doesn't effect the repair anyway.
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
Originally Posted by bkdc
The reason I hate metallic paint. If the paint were solid, a chip like that would be easy to blend seamlessly. If I were fixing that, I'd apply almost all clear coat. Dr Colorchip or Lanka don't do well with metallic paints.
Ah yes, the virtues of wonderful, beautiful solid color paints! Too bad that on the S Class, there is only one: black. My little SL is Polar White, probably “THE” most basic, easy to maintain and repair color ever. It should be available on the W222, just as BMW has their gorgeous Alpine White and Audi has the wonderful Ibis White. But, MB never listens to me—or anyone else.
Hi @DABRONX , thanks for your feedback. Am certainly not an expert and don't have the experience that you have regarding these topics. However, I think there is some misunderstanding. The body shop said they would fix the area around the emblum only with paint, and they would leave the rest of the hood as is but they will add a clear coat on the entire good to blend it all in. The reason I brought the touch-up paint from the dealership is that I have 2 other small "very small" chips in the hood far a away from the scratch in my original post. They said they'd try the dealership touch-up as well as their paint to see which one works best on these small chips as I don't want to paint the entire hood, so that they'd use a syringe or tiny needle to fill in those chips BEFORE they add the clear coat over the entire hood. Does that make sense to you? I have until tomorrow to decide what I want to do.
Update: I tried the touch up on the scratch at the MBenz dealership next to the emblem and it didn't look good at all, it's darker and unfortunately it needs to be sanded cause the surface of the scratch is not 100% flat. The local body shop advised that I give it a try and I did, but they told be in advance that it won't work and won't look good, now that I tried - am convinced that I have no option but to spray that area around the emblem. The only questions for now, am I doing the right thing by repairing only that spot "circle around emblem" and clear-coat the rest of the hood or should I paint the entire hood (hate to loose the factory painted hood for a small spot). They said if they do the small spot only, it will blend it and there won't be any difference after clear-coating the hood. thoughts? advise?
A shop will repair the chip, blend the paint and re clear coat the hood.
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
I can only give my opinion, as I am no expert. I would absolutely NOT have your hood repainted. They may match the color perfectly and it will look great when you get the car back, but in most all cases, over time, it will fade differently than the factory paint. In addition, it has been my experience, that on a leading edge panel, like the hood, rock chips will tend to be much larger and deeper when hitting a repainted panel. If it were me, I would have an expert do that Dr. ColorChip thing and just forget about it.
Thanks @Streamliner . I knew from the begging that there is not a single answer to this issue. The feedback I received from everyone was very helpful. At this point of time, am thinking to do the following tomorrow morning:
Option 1: sand the spot around the emblem only, spray paint it, clear-coat the entire hood. Body shop said it's guaranteed and will give me a warranty. If it doesn't look good on day 1, body shop will refund 100% of the money, and will spray-paint the entire good for me at no charge. He seemed to be confident that he knows what to do.
Option 2: If I changed by mind next morning, my next preferred option is to just do toutch-up paint on that scratch again at this body shop and live with whatever imperfection that would look like (MBenz dealership toutch-up fix failed to make it look reasonable good today).
Option 3: Do Option 2 first, if it doesn't look good again, I can back to option B and digest the extra cost of doing a secound touch-up trial, which is fine but it's a waste of time and money I feel.
Option 4: Paint spray the entire hood
Again, thanks everyone for your help and advise, that was really helpful. Thanks for reading all this again!
Best option in my mind is a focal repair. Tape off and mark off the edges with an oil pen and tape. Gently use a glass pen in the chip. Very very light spray of metallic paint just to show reflections. Then application of a few layers 2k clear coat followed by curing, sanding, polishing. The edges of the repair will be noticeable and clear coat bo'undaries will not match but from far away, it will probably be better than the current nonreflective dull chip.
Dr Colorchip doesn't sell a clear-coat-only version of its kit for repairs (although it should) such as this just to fill in the top layer of a metallic chip.
I say it again. I HATE METALLIC PAINT. Mercedes needs to take some lessons from Porsche and offer more nonmetallic solid colors.
I don't get why metallic colors are so standard. The are so much uglier than the gleam and reflection of a well detailed and polished/waxed nonmetallic color. It caters to folks who keep their cars dusty and dirty.
Great suggestion, @bkdc !. I'll talk to the body shop and suggest this. Although what you suggested seems to be easy to do but I have not tools and don't feel like I want to do it myself.
As I promised, I wanted to update you on how the repair went at Eurobahn!!! I AM COMPLETELY SATISFIED WITH THE RESULTS! those guys are so professional
When he said he fixes Lamborghinis' and Ferraris' and showed be photos, he was absolutely honest based on what I see.
I am satisfied with the results, the picture below summarizes all the work done.
Sorry if any of this below doesn't make sense to you but I'll do my best to describe how the 3 days repair process go:
He covered the entire hood and worked only around that spot, fixed the spot first and filled it with paint, did a light spray only around that area, and blended the area around the emblem following a symmetrical circular path with clear quote and ~20% paint (am not sure what he meant). The "mm" thickness of paint at the scratch, around emblem and rest of hood all matched up.
It seems that there might be a difference in color before and after, but this is just in the photos below due to different lighting conditions. You can't tell that there is any difference at all comparing the area around emblem and rest of hood. "at least 95% of the hood was not touched and kept factory)
Our local MB dealers can get this hood repair done very reasonably.
Not really! As I mentioned above, first thing I did was get it repaired at the dealer, they fixed it with touch up paint and results were not good and scratch was still there easily seen!
Not really! As I mentioned above, first thing I did was get it repaired at the dealer, they fixed it with touch up paint and results were not good and scratch was still there easily seen!
never had any paint work done @ Greenboro but several done @ Winston Salem MB. They use Color Magic paint repair. Dealership never touch's your car. Used them on several of my cars that need touch up. Never a problem. Cost s/b apprx $100 +/-
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