As promised.. Stone chips
 

I borrowed the girlfriends DSLR and washed, and photoed my baby for your requests. This is after almost 20k miles of hard Chicago driving dealing with road debris, and winter salt can really do a number.

Just make sure it's complete protection. Check my last photo.

I've got a million badges!

You can see both the orange peel and stone chips in some of the photos

I feel the same way, and now for the CARnage.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps2b15c47d.jpg

A little orange peel, and stone chips.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps580127f1.jpg

Please note, the car was just washed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps39ace16c.jpg

There are a few deep ones on the nose.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps849b842b.jpg

Factory clear bra didn't save me from this guy. It is all the way to the metal.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps51d394e0.jpg

Cheers guys!

so glad i have a silver car! hahah

I can beat that...

Be right back.

Edit: Well, maybe mine is just a bad, fair draw? :lol:

I used a point and shoot cam cam, don't have a DSLR.

Its kinda dark in New York right now.

And yes, the car is clean.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps3c7d1f2e.jpg
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/t...psf2cb6db0.jpg
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/t...psc7062289.jpg

All those little white dots you see are rock chips.

Oh and someone said it won't be that bad on Silver?

Ha, it'll be just as bad...

I have rock chips on my roof!!!

ouch :[

I have only two chips I've noticed, but they're annoying. I should go take photos.

Now that winter is over, I'm interested to see pics from people who jumped on the OptiCoat wagon. I wonder how much of a difference it really made in real world testing... Anyone?

Nice color choice:w00t:

My car has 1500 miles and I have this...and my car is opticoated.

http://i.imgur.com/1KjnPZ0.jpg

Opti coat has said time and time again that Opti Coat won't prevent rock chips.

Though i would love to see a comparison.

Car has to have around 10K+ plus miles though...

I'm not entirely sure why this was moved to Cosmetic Maintenance. Yes, it is dealing with a cosmetic issue, but it was more an answer to a general question requesting photos of the stone chips. There's nothing here about maintaining it, or cleaning it up. It's just being informative.

Oh well.

Well now I know that I am adding the clear bra to the bumper and not just the hood.

whats the cost of a clear bra vs a fresh repaint of the bumper?

The factory Scion clear bra is like $375 for the hood and $600 for the bumper. I bet you could get your dealer to put 3M clear bra on there for much cheaper.

The number of airborne objects ejected by a car in front of you decreases radically with distance. So if you are in the habit of driving 20 feet from the car in front of you at highway speed, you will garner many times the number of impacts to you car that you would if you kept a greater distance. It probably decreases by a factor of ten if you double the distance to the car in front. In addition, try to stay out of the right lane, which tends to have a greater accumulation of debris and sand on the right margin. Lastly, maintain extra clearance from trucks and construction vehicles. In this case, tailgaters do get bad paint karma.

I tend to stay like 3 car lengths back even in 45 mph areas, and still get hit. sometimes it feels like the only way to avoid it is to either be in front of everyone, or parked at home.

Simply passing 18 wheelers on the highway and you'll get em...

This is me. I tend to follow pretty far back, which makes some people angry. I got in this habit when I broke 6 fog lights in a year on my cobra. The three rock chips I have are VERY small. Only reason I noticed them is because I wash the car

Better paint would probably help out as well. Like other's have mentioned, our paint is so thin! Clear bras are great, but mine ended up looking pretty crappy on my last car. I ended up pulling it off after 3 years or so. I decided just to skip it this time and just enjoy "adding personality" to the bumper with some chips.

@Hawaiian, Thank for the pics! It is nice to see that the car is enjoyed!

Clear Bras are like putting plastic covers on your sofa.

Could not have said it better myself

That's less than a 1 second following gap...

You're following much too close.

From what I understand, the car factories have recently transitioned from an oil-based paint to a water-based paint in recent years. I wonder If these are the affects of the paint type...not sure. The paint on these cars do seem a bit thinner than previous cars I've owned.

How recently? My 2010 golf with 38,000 miles had less rock chips than my Brz with 1,500. And I commuted from an asphalt plant with the golf!

You are right, that is the reason most cars have horrible orange peel these days. Even Porsches, Bimmers etc.

The 991 Carrera S I saw at the Detroit Auto Show had horrible orange peel on the doors and rockers.

A lot of companies do that on purpose, hoping it will protect the paint.

How would orange peel protect the paint?

Unless you mean it helps cover underlying problems with paint application.

I believe the paint transition was 2011-2012...don't quote me on that though. In general, European made vehicles have greater paint quality as well.

It's nearly impossible to determine if opti-coat actually makes a difference in real world scenarios, because you can't take into account all of the rock chips it did prevent if it actually worked. Honestly if i could do it all over again i would get a clear bra since i am big on aesthetics.

yes, get a clear bra.

Had water based paint on my 2006 TSX. Chips Ahoy.

I think if I could do it over I would clear bra just the front bumper. It has a shit ton of rock chips and I don't see any elsewhere...

waterborne makes really no difference at all. besides all that is waterborne is the base coat. it tends to be a slightly thinner than solvent but again, any base coat is supper brittle no matter what. the clear is still a 2 part, activated clear. it is lower voc than stuff years ago but really not that much different. i sprayed solvent for years, now we are converted to waterborne/low voc. thickness of the finish doesnt have a whole lot to do with chips. honestly the thicker the finish the worse the chips usually look. i get people in the shop all the time that say they want X amount of extra clear on their car. first off there is a tech sheet for every product that states the min and max mil thickness for it, so stacking a ton on can cause all kind of issues of its own. solvent pop and solvent cracking to name two.

best bang for your buck is clear bra, and someone who is good at it. i have Xpel film on my bumper, whole hood, and whole fenders. finding the right person is key. all edges will wrap around and no lines will show. just my 2 cents.

If clear bras are like plastic covers, what are the old-style vinyl bras like?

awful , had one on my Eclipse back in the day, destroyed the paint underneath it.

Grandma's underpants

I try to do this also but notice people behind me get angry and overtake me to get to that "prime real estate" in front of me only to get caught behind another car going the same speed. These people have such low foresight, thinking that I'm the only car on the road in front of them and that by overtaking me they can speed on ahead and get to their destination anywhere from 10 seconds to a few minutes earlier.... :thumbdown:

The worst part is I'm not even sure leaving a big gap necessarily helps with rockchip issue since these drivers kick up rocks as they overtake and cut me at higher speeds. :mad0259:

Guh....

Cheer up guys, you have yet to see mine. My BRZ looks 3 year old at least.

Lol! They do that to me too! I'll just usually find a less busy lane at that point. At the end of the day, its just a car, and a rather cheap one at that. Imagine how a Ferrari driver feels ;)

if your clear bra does not wrap around the edges... well, you've got crappy clear bra.