Is it absolutely necessary to touch up any chips/scratches on your paint?
 

Is it absolutely necessary to touch up any chips/scratches on your paint or is it just for aesthetic purposes? I know a lot of people say if you don't fix em up your car will start to rust but my FRS has seriously hundreds of chips on the hood and bumper. Seems like a hassle to fix them all. So is it okay to leave the hundreds of tiny chips on the hood/bumper or should I use touch up pen on it?

Well now, the hood is aluminum and the bumpers are plastic ...... so, if the chips don't bother you .... they won't bother them .....;)

However, you may consider continuing to wax over them .... so they don't .... grow ..... :)


humfrz

If you live where there is salted roads and the paint chips are on the metal part of the car, yes.
Bumpers, hoods I would not worry about it. The bumper is plastic. The hoold easily fixable.
Now, any where else like the behind the wheels I would fix it up quick.

But I'll be worried about the undercarriage way before I would even consider the body.

I spend 14 hours a week on highways frequented by gravel trucks and my front bumper looks like it was hit with multiple shot gun blasts. I just leave them. Back last September about 2 weeks after I got the car I took a rather serious high velocity rock hit to my front fender. It left a paint chip about a 1/4 inch around. As I am a curious sort of guy I have left it untreated (I do not plan to keep the car for years and years) just to see what happened. So far it has gone one year, including a very salty winter and there is zero sign of any rust and the paint around it has stayed intact.
People seem to think all cars are 1986 K cars and the least bit of exposed steel is a rust hazard. Not true anymore with the way they treat it before paint. Still better to fix chips on the steel sections of course but you car isn't going to rot away in 2 years if you don't.

If they dont go through paint to metal, dont worry. If they show metal i'd worry because of rust. It'll take a while but it'll be there.

On bumper just apply 2-3 coats of wax and a spray on quik detailer. It'll be easier to clean bugs off of it and also give some resistance to chips.


Don't drive close to others!

guys, the more rust you have, the more holes in the body.

The more holes in the body, the lighter you are.

Lighter=faster

Don't listen to the guys that obsessively wax and clay bar their cars. If it bugs you, fix it, but if it is all good, don't bother. These cars are meant to be driven.

If there are scratches that go through to steel, aka roof doors, rear, then it might be worth fixing it, but otherwise it is overkill unless you enjoy doing that sort of thing.

I love teasing the crazy clean people. I bought my Yaris in May of 2006. I cleaned it myself one time, because I was in florida at the time and the love bugs were attacking it. It was also cleaned once when I had it in the auto body shop because I can't see in dark and stormy weather and I sideswiped a stop sign in a massive parking lot. That's it. I've never waxed it, I've never otherwise paid to have it detailed. It lived 6 years On the Cape near the ocean, gone through snow and salt, and 3 years in central florida crap weather. No rust anywhere. And there are people who have had the paint peel to the primer for some strange reason and other screwball things, I bet it is because they wax and claybarred it weekly.:bellyroll:

mmmh... do you at least clean the interior?

up to a point. I mean it is not disgusting inside, but I am not going to armor all the holy hell out of everything either.I had some clean freaks attack my Yaris when I posted pics of the interior after the body shop cleaned everything interior and exterior. I will wipe the crap off and make it so people can sit in it, but I am just not into cleaning as an art form or form of self torture.

I would like to see pics of this shrapnel ridden bumper/hood of yours. It almost seems infamous around here as I feel like you mentioned it in quite a few threads.

Will take one when we are not in the middle of a monsoon like now.

I just noticed a paint chip on the driver side of the door arch... how worried should I be?

If it helps, I am pretty fucking worried.

I'd suggest you purchase some touch up paint and dab it over the chip.

If you can't get touch up paint for a while ..... you can wax it up good (but, be sure to take all the wax off before you paint it).

Worried ..... ?? ..... I doubt the door will rust through from a chip ..... in your lifetime .... :)


humfrz

Some people take pride in what they own. I spent nearly 30k on this car. I'm not going to wax it every week, but I'm going to take care of it so it still looks good after 10 years.