Just took my car for a front clear bra and did a walk around inspection and noticed these 2 little buggers on my passenger door. Emailed my dealer body shop to get an estimate. Pretty annoying.

Also noticed some jerk tried to scratch "X"s into my rear lights....luckily licked my thumb and rubbed and they came out. Gonna try and be more careful where I park from now on.

 

There are so many jealous people out there making it impossible to park these cars in a public venue for more than a few minutes. What happened to the days when everyone respected cars? Sad state of affairs.

 

You rich people, you didn't earn that! When politicos stoke the class warfare fires this is to be expected. So sad. When I was a kid I was taught to work hard and look up to put who have achieved in life; now we are being told to despise them. I worry about my kids futures...

 

Oh man! I hear you. I have a chip on the hood of my new car and didn't notice. I had a clear bra installed too so now it's semi permanent. Pretty tough to fix such chips other than touch up paint not really worth a full repaint (never quite new car quality). Good luck!

 

Not always the case. Over at the BMW forum, a member parked his M3 in front of a camera purposely. A lady in her 60's walking a poodle decides to take out her key and keyed his M3. He later found out she is a wealthy lady.

 

Dealer said they have to repaint the whole door....

Thing is..looking at it now, i notice them coz i know they're there. But really they are so small and not very noticeable...Wondering if i should do the painting at all or keep it like this until I really get annoyed.

Is there a risk in that? Could it rust?

 

Buy some touch-up paint from your dealer and DIY.
It won't be perfect but it will look MUCH better... and you can always paint it later if you decide you can't live with the the touch up

 

I highly recommend the Langka chip repair kit. I use it as a professional detailer because you can use the factory touch up paint unlike the Dr. Colorchip which uses their own brand of generic colors. I would be extremely reticent to allow the dealer to repaint the whole door. That is a ridiculous attempt by them to massively overcharge you. Not only that but it is difficult to panel match a color and the respray could hurt your resale value. Overall, I would avoid anything other than factory applied and baked paint anywhere on the vehicle except for pinpoint touch ups.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to assist you.

Thanks,
-Patrick

 

Take note: Words of wisdom here!!

 

Look into paint protection film (aka clear bra, clear wrap, etc.) as the technology of today's films are quite neat. Having a good custom installer will make the installation look nearly seamless, so it will not detract from the looks of the car itself.

 

When it comes to paint protection, there are varying factors that determine how visible it is on the car:

1. The film - some films exhibit more orange peel texture than others, which is most noticeable on dark colored vehicles.
2. Custom or precut templates - the precut templates will have more seams than custom. However, when it comes to custom applications, it takes a tremendous amount of experience and skill to be able to execute so the film is not visible to most.
3. Regardless of custom or precut, the most important of all would be the installer. Installers come and go in this industry and many companies do not actually perform the installations themselves. Due to the amount of time it takes to hone in the skills of paint protection film, many companies do not have the luxury of learning a new trade. In this aspect, they would rather hire out someone to do the work for them. This would mean that you are paying a higher premium as the contracting company would need to mark up the services to make margin. In addition, the natural issue with this is that many companies use a bidding process to find the cheapest company to act as their in-house vendor, which also means there is potentially the issue of using a less experienced company for the work

Overall, keep your eyes out for the top 3 points, and this would give you an added edge when it comes to finding a quality company to perform the work and make it look very good. We have been doing this since 1997, so this is our opinion based on the 17 years of experience we have accumulated in this industry.

 

Touch up paint for sure, don't paint the door.

 

Try to find out who your dealer uses for Touch up repair. That can be fixed with a airbrush and you won't be able to see it. You don't have to repaint whole door. Bodyshops always will tell you that to make more $$. This type of damage happens to majority of new cars and dealers call their airbrush touch up guy to repair the damage.

 

Clear bras are a waste of money. They may or may not protect your paint but they do get dinged and then you have a damaged clear bra. Depending on what hits your clear bra your paint may be damaged and the cost of removing the clear bra then repairing the paint is costly. Just repair the paint when it gets to the point where you can't stand it anymore. I have personally had a very good mobile paint repair guy come directly to my home and they did a great job of repairing the damaged paint. Cost was $200-$250. If I had a clear bra I would have been screwed and the damaged paint would not have been repaired like new.

 

+1 99% of the clear bra installers do a crappy job and put razor cuts in the Paint. Not sure what the effect of a clear bra will be when it needs to be removed either.