Paint Chip Repair - As Seen on TV

They are useless. DrColorchip does work.

 

10-15 rock chips - I would just get it repainted. I did and it was inexpensive and looks much better.

 

If you have exact match touch up paint, a product called "Langka" works well. You overfill each chip with paint, let it partially dry, then use Langka to level it off even with the surrounding surface. It takes a while to get the feel for it, but you won't be able to see the chip repairs at all once you get the process down. For metallic paint, it's much more difficult to get an invisible repair with Langka because you have to deal with the clear coat, but for non-metallic it works really well.

 

I second the notion that Langka is a winner. Takes a little time, and you have to use STANDARD touch up paint for it to work, for rossa corsa I think you'd be fine.

I used it several times on my Dino.

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It's very liberating to be able to fix them on your own -- it allows you to keep the paint original and it allows you to drive the wheels off of the car without living in fear of picking up the next paint chip. I once had a dealer touch up some chips (wanting to keep the paint original) and they did a horrible job -- it's better to do touch-up yourself (or do a respray if you don't care about originality).

Regarding finding exactly matching touch-up paint, it can be difficult because there have been a lot different versions of "Rosso Corsa" over the years. I read somewhere (I think on Fchat) that some Napa stores have the ability to scan a car to mix up custom touch-up paint, but I haven't seen that to be the case locally. It would be nice if there was a nationwide chain that offered onsite color matching touch-up.

 

So is Langka just a fine grit abrasive? What's so special about it?

 

It's not an abrasive, it's a liquid that is formulated to break down fresh paint while not harming the existing fully cured paint. They sell it as a kit with 3 bottles -- precleaner, blob eliminator, sealant -- but all you need to buy is the standalone "blob eliminator" bottle (there is nothing special about the precleaner or the sealant). Their official video is below:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot7ta_fJehQ[/ame]

 

So which does better Langka or Dr Chip

 

I use the Dr Color Chip (Rossa Corsa 300). It's very rewarding to do it yourself. I'm looking forward to more chips and more magic.

 

I haven't used it myself, but that Langka has some bad reviews on Amazon. Apparently, it's just some kind of a lacquer thinner.

I bought a vial of Rosso Corsa FERRARI-322 from ExpressPaint for my 1999 360. I don't know if the paint formulations have changed over the years, but for 20 bucks it might be worth a try.

 

If your car is black, a black Sharpie pen makes a big difference.

I have touched the tip of one of those pens to chips on the front of my car for years. It needs painting but from 10 feet it looks fine. Without the Sharpie it looked like hell from twice that distance.

I don't think you can get away with any color but black doing this.

 

Have you guys seen this? https://www.drcolorchip.com

I'm about to try it on my Mercedes, "film at eleven"

 

No blobs with DrColorchip

 

I don't think it makes sense to use Dr. Colorchip paint with Langka. I haven't tried Dr. Colorchip, but from what I can see, there are two different approaches:

With Langka, you can use any touch-up paint you may already have or buy it anywhere. You overfill the chip, let the paint partially dry, then level it to the surface with Langka.

Dr. Colorchip uses special paint that, from looking at the video, seems to take a little longer to set, so you overfill the chips and wipe away the excess after a period of time. Hopefully somebody who has used Dr. Colorchip will comment, but I think the design of Colorchip paint doesn't need something like Langka to work.

 

I have experience with both. Langka is as mentioned, a solution that is used with whatever matching paint you have obtained (e.g., dealer, etc) You apply the paint, wait a bit following the instructions and then gently rub the langka across the touchup chip. Too much rubbing will take you back to wear you started.

Dr.CC matches the paint for your car after you supply the paint code. Similar process (not exact), and then you use their solution to runb the blob back to even with the surface. The color for my car was a perfect match.

As as mentioned, I tried both of these companies on one of my porsches that had metallic paint and it didn't do nearly as well as a solid color. The little particles in the touch up paint never really matched the surrounding surface.

 

don't forget that paint fades... red is the worst of all colors for fading... color matching with paint code does not allow for fading... the formula only matches the original formula, UV exposure over the years changes the color...

 

We have Chipex here in the UK. I think it may be an American product. I tried it on my daily and was a bit disappointed. It is full of stone-chips though and perhaps I tried to do too many.
I will have the Ferrari done professionally when required.

 

I'm doing the front of my modern Jag with metallic and clear coat at the moment. So far ... just dabbing the touch up on and sanding them out then buffing is working just fine. It's time consuming but it looks much, much better than missing paint. The really small stuff I'm just sanding smooth.

I liked the black magic marker idea. I'll look for a dark green one and see what I think.

Back in the late 80's I found some Colorwax and used that at times with good results but none of this is going to be like actually getting the area resprayed. This is for a driver used for occasional errands and luxury driving so it's always going to get chipped.

 

The problem with metallic is that the color and shine won't match at all without clear coat, and it's hard to add level clear coat after you have leveled the base coat paint. One trick that works a little is to mix a tiny bit of clear coat into the base paint, fill the chip with the combined clear/base, and just level it once. I have done this with some success -- not perfect, but almost perfect and much better than my prior attempts on metallic.