roguesturgeon

So after only 800 miles and one month of local, standard road driving, I discovered several nasty rock chips on my Evo. 3 on the hood, 1 on the rear driver door, and one on the driver mirror. It's funny because I go out of my way to avoid areas with these sorts of hazards. I have the factor touch up paint pen, how do I go about using it effectively? I've heard a lot of different things on youtube and such, so I figured I would defer to the judgement of you all...

I'd also like to avoid this in the future, if anyone has suggestions of how to do that.

This noob thanks you.

Bmurray

iTrader: (5)

You could do a clear bra

Lightsaber

^^^ Like he said, clear bra does the trick. I have Xpel Ultimate wrapped on my Evo's front end, lower rear quarter panels & rear doors. They do a perfect job. I'm also planning on buffing the indents behind door handles and protect them with Xpel Ultimate as well. The paint behind door handles gets a lot of nail scratch.

You also want RallyArmor mud flaps if you don't have them already. The consensus of the Evo community is that the mud flaps need to be the first mod for your Evo.

roguesturgeon

I so have the flaps already. So this is helpful, but what about repairing the chips that are there already. Any suggestions as to technique/method of doing this?

Lightsaber

I personally won't bother, because Mitsubishi paint can hardly last five years anyway.

But that's just me. If you take the car to any respectable body shop and supply them the paint code, buffing out the rock chips are a piece of cake to them.

roguesturgeon

So Mitsubishi paint is trash basically? I mean, I have a 20 year old Saab with less hood chips lol.

Lightsaber

The contemporary Mitsubishi paint is a very thin water-based coating, typically around 2.2~2.5 mils (56~64µm). The auto industry's standard is around 3.4~3.8 mils (86~97µm). This alone is sufficient to make it the worst paint job in the industry today.

Then you consider the paint itself is a very low quality water-based paint. In other words, very soft paint that gets chipped and scratched by anything. This is fundamentally different than the high end water-based paints you see on luxury cars, which can withstand the impacts of rocks without being chipped, or the old solvent-based paints in the old days, which were almost as tough as the metal itself.

Combining these two awesome features, you can be sure that your Mitsubishi will have an aftermarket paint job in a few years and you will be broke as the result.

roguesturgeon

Ha, well at least now I know that there wasn't much I could do about it. In 3 years when I'm out of Nurse Practitioner school I'll be able to pony up the 3-6,000 for a very good paint job, no problem.

Thanks a bunch for the info. I think I'm gonna get the 3M Scotchguard for the hood and front bumper until then. Any thoughts on that?

Lightsaber

Personally, I have my Mercury Gray Evo's front end, rear quarter area, and the horizontal belt of the rear bumper wrapped in Xpel Ultimate. The plan is keep the factory paint as long as it lasts, ideally 7~10 years. After all, Mercury Gray is beautiful paint, manly and metallic. It looks great both under natural light and artificial light, which cannot be said for some other colors available for the Evo:

Attachment 326865

Attachment 326657

After that, I'm debating whether to have it repainted with Aston Martin Skyfall Silver or Ferrari Grigio Alloy. I intend to do it with the highest quality formula (DuPont Cromax Pro) and solvent-based formulation, using at least four round of buffing (so it will look very liquid and metallic), and finishing with around 3.8 mils (97µm), so this aftermarket paint job should last for the car's entire life.

For the time being, the money is being invested in stocks and bonds.

Lightsaber

A good paint job may cost the upward of $6,000. And if you take care of the paint, it should last 5 years, if not more, no doubt. 3 years is bit too pessimistic.

roguesturgeon

Considering my obsessive protection and minimal driving has already caused 2 hood chips, 1 back seat driver door chip, and 1 driver mirror chip, while my 20 year old Saab doesn't even have that number, I'm blaming the paint.

PracticalDriver

The paint on EVO's are definitely on the light side. I track my car and have to follow other cars closely sometimes, and they kick up debris so... I'll just call my paint chips battle scars that give "character"

Esthetics

iTrader: (1)

I 3M'd my Evo as soon as I got it so luckily I don't have many rock chips. Maybe a few unavoidable ones but its impossible to protect against those.