Well, I take meticulous care of my Mini S. About a week ago I noticed a rock chip on the front of my hood, where a rock must have skimmed across the paint. No dent. Just chipped paint across an area about the size of a dime. I have a Mini touch-up paint kit (paint and clear) but before I attempted a touch-up repair I drove to a paint shop owned by a friend of mine to have him look at it. He offered to mix up some paint and have his son do the touch-up (he is a great pin striper and is very steady with a brush). A couple of days later he put on some clear. When everything dried the paint was raised a bit, which made the repair noticeable. They told me to bring it in after a couple of more days and they'd wet sand it with 1000 grit sandpaper and buff it out (common to do this).

Yesterday I drove to the shop and after literally 1 minute of light sanding he had this horrible look on his face. Next thing I hear is, "well, I guess you're getting an entire hood repaint on me". He rubbed off the dust and showed me that the sanding went right through the factory clear. In other words, the clear that was applied at the factory was VERY thin. The light wet sanding should not have gone through the clear like that. So now they have to order a new Mini emblem for the hood, take in my car for about a week, and repaint the entire hood. It has to be re-striped as well. Apparently the re-striping is not an easy task.

I'm somewhat bummed but feel worse for the shop. They tried to help me out with a minor repair and now it has turned into a major repair. I gave the son a $50 Texas Roadhouse gift card which I had bought for him as a thank-you before the mishap. I plan on somehow blessing him with a bit more as a thank-you for fixing the mishap. Accidents happen.

 

For everyones information. Dr Colorchip has a chip repair kit. I have used these before to repair rock chips and in fact repaired a prettying big chip on my drivers door that went down to the primer. Took some time and the use of a squeegee to level the paint. But, when finished, you could not see the repair. And this was done on a metallic paint job. I am not a painter by trade or have those skills.

I ordered the chip repair kit for my Mini that was purchased recently in anticipation of these kind of road hazards.

Can't stand the touch up paint sold by dealers as they tend to leave the raised area and not blend well with the surrounding paint.

The paint sold in the Dr. C kits is nothing special. I think what makes the kit so great is the "blending solution" putting this on the provided cloth and rubbing the area blends the paint in to the surrounding areas and levels it.....making the repair virtually invisible.

 

Hmmm. That is interesting. Do you have a photo of the area that you repaired?

Here is a video of the Dr. ColorChip kit being used. While the results are pretty good, the paint itself is darker and doesn't match the factory paint as much as I'd like to see. But IMO it does a better job than using a brush as far as filling in the chip without being raised about the factory paint.

 

This product, ChipEx, seems to be excellent as well. Check out the video demos. I think I'm going to order it for future chips. To find a kit for your Mini product, go to the website, select BMW and then select Mini. You can also enter your paint code if you know it. Looks very easy to use. http://www.chipex.com/

BLACK BMW REPAIR (MULTIPLE CHIPS)

SILVER JAGUAR REPAIR (LONG SCRATCH)

 

Which regard to the stripes: If it's vinyl then it's really straight forward. The guys that did mine did it in about 5 minutes.

 

I had to do some minor repair on my hood and fender.
Not the entire thing was repainted, but still bad enough.

Had to pull off my hood stripes too.... I have yet to put them back on. As i dont know any good installer who can line back up where the old one used to be

There are shadow of where the old stripe used to be.

Also just note that after a repaint, when u look at ur hood and fender from under the hood, u can tell the color difference too lol


PS: Regarding Dr.Colorchip, i ordered a kit for my MINI.
It turns out the color i received is a shade or 2 darker than the actual color of my car. Havent had the time to contact with them.... as i work 5-6 everyday

 

I've wet sanded clear coat (not on an F56) but I'd never start with 1,000 grit unless I knew how much clear was there. Maybe they picked that grit because of the high spot from the touch up. At least they are re-painting. I'd ask them to put a heavier coat of clear on the car to help with rock chips in the future.

I've had good luck with this place. They mix the paint when you order it. You can get a clear as well.

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/tou...int/mini/2015/

I've used this too but many times if the chip is small it will take the paint out of the chip and I have to start over.

http://www.langka.com/

 

Thanks for all the advice. Yes, I assume they went with the 1000 grit because of the raised area. However, I had talked to the paint shop that does work for my Mini dealer and they said 1000 grit should be fine. I'm just wondering if the factory clear on the F56 is thinner than it is on the 2013 model.

I'm hoping that I can drop off my car on next Monday and get it back by the end of the week.

 

The paint on these cars suck for a factory paint job. My front lower bumper had to be repainted/cleared because the clear bra that was put on cracked the think paint. It literally flaked off. The clear bra place paid for it completely, so that was nice. However since I didn't drive four hours to Seattle to have Mini "evaluate" it and be without a care for 1-2 weeks, they told me there was nothing they could do.

 

I can't argue that 1,000 should have been fine but I wouldn't have started there til a lighter grit was tried. But even 2,000 grit can sand through the clear eventually. If that is how thin the clear is than that is disappointing. They should have a device to measure the thickness of the paint. It is too pricey for me, but a paint shop should have one. You should ask them to measure the paint in a few other places.

 

I feel like the clear coat on these are really thin. I've had mine 2 weeks and I already have 2 or 3 rock chips in the paint. Compared to the 10 or so I had on my Clubman over 86k miles.

 

Update: I had my hood repainted and picked it up yesterday. They did a perfect job. Now I will be doing my best to stay away from tractor trailers.