Paging Dr. Colorchip...

[SCWDP911]

Well, I ordered a Dr. Colorchip Road Rash kit a onth ago and finally made some time tonight to try it out.

I got the car prepped (washed and all chips in the test area (my entire trunklid) wiped down with wax and grease remover. Ran a microfiber over the whole area and read the instructions one more time. Then went in and read some internet instructions again...

Well, I figured when your front end looks like mine (daily driver), what can hurt? Here are some pics of before:







Here are the "magical" pieces of the kit:

[James Brown]

Man, that looks like a bumper and hood repaint job not a touchup.

[SCWDP911]

When I opened this stuff up I noticed it was pretty runny. I thought the pics on the website all made it seem thicker so that it helped fill the chip. The instructions stated to apply paint to tshirt and spread across the area for major road rash. This did not work worth a crap. I think most of the paint was soaking into the tshirt. Hardly anything was staying on the car. I tried the brush, and still pretty runny and hard to do the dab and smear as the instructions stated without taking off all of the paint. I got online and started looking up Dr. CC too runny and low and behold found some info (which I later saw was on their website - kindof). The info was that metallics might need to be "aged" a little before applying. Aged to them is putting some of the paint in a small cup (I used a very small plastic lid) and let it "air" out a little while stirring (basically drying it out a bit). It seemed to thicken up and I thought "cool"... however, it was still not to be on the tshirt application deal (if anyone has done it successfully with the tshirt, please let me know the secret). I decided to try the dabbing of the brush and it seemed to be covering pretty well. I did not smear with my thumb as stated in the directions. I thought I could smear it with the brush as I was going, just basically spreading it out. I think this might have been a mistake as it setup pretty thick and the 3rd part of the process, wiping off excess paint with the special sauce they provide, proved to be a pain in the buttocks. Here are some pics with the paint applied all over my hood:

[SCWDP911]

Originally Posted by James Brown

Man, that looks like a bumper and hood repaint job not a touchup.

Yeah I know. But I wanted to test it out with a real challenge! Hey, for $40 I figured it was worth a shot to see if it would help. I can;t ever make up my mid about backdating, so until then I thought maybe this would make public meeting places with other Porsches a little less embarrassing.

But standby, I am actually kind of shocked at how much of an improvement just this first application made.

[RSWiser]

WOW!
That really did the trick.

The before pics looked like a repaint to me.

[James Brown]

yeah, that should buff right out.... Interested how it will work out.

[SCWDP911]

The worst part of the whole job is wiping the excess, probably because I did not smear it enough. But all in all, I am very shocked at the improvement. I am looking forward to trying it out on the bumper, and redoing parts of the hood, but those will have to wait until we come home form California next week. I also think, by the time I polish and wax, it will be pretty tolerable if not better. Keeping my fingers crossed. I hope these pictures turn out and give you an idea of how this seemed to work on my car. I say so far, though I was skeptical at first, that it "justa might a werk"!

[SCWDP911]

That last pics was of some "spider web" crakcing in my clear coat I guess. I brushed the DCC over it just to see if it would help. You can see the difference from the picture in the first post I think. I will go over it again to see if it can get better.

This stuff is not a replacement for a paint job obviously, which my front end needs (daily driver). But it sure does look like it is going to help. If your car is a lot less trvelled than mine, then I would feel good about recommending this stuff to you to try on your car. Seems to do a decent job of it.

One last note: I bought the road rash kit which is their largest kit (amount of paint). I was a little worried about how small the bottle of paint was, but it seems to go a long way. I think I will still have a 1/4 bottle left after doing my bumper next week. Also, if I were to order again, I would order extra remover stuff (sorry can;t remember name and too tired to look right now). You do NOT want to run out of the remover stuff!

[SCWDP911]

here is one set of before and after's:

[GothingNC]

Not bad for $40 and a lot of elbow grease

I tried the paint kit from a comany called "touch up 123" which I think is out of business.

Same type of kit and tested it out on one of the sideview mirrors.

Paint seemed to be a bit too dark, I think I might have to "age" it a bit and try again.


Thread o someone using on a BMW Z

Touch up 123 review and detail of an 02 z3 - Autopia.org

[SCWDP911]

Got the first round on the bumper done tonight. A big improvement but still room to go. Makes it a 5-10 footer instead of a 20 footer. I am going to let it set for 2-3 weeks and try wetsanding it and buiffing it again. Pics:

Before:


After:


Before:


After:

[jcsjcs]

Not too bad! As the owner of a 1984 Ruby Red Targa - I am inspired to get the kit.

How do you think it would do on a SCRATCH? (An SUV road up on my hood a few years ago - and the scratch drives me crazy.)

[SCWDP911]

been trying it on a scratch on my rear driver's hip. So far, not impressed, but maybe it is technique. They say on their website that scratches might not work well I think. I will try it again and try to post pics. As I said before, this is more of a mask effect at the present. They say you need to apply multiple coats to bring paint up flush on bad pitting. I will need to order more of the remover stuff first as it is pretty tough to get the excess off in my experience so far.

[Looking_for_911]

So far, fairly inpressive stuff!

[Greek55]

I tried this on a Range Rover and it didnt work very well. Whenever I would use the "special sauce" to wipe off the excess it would take the paint out of the scratches.

[Rot 911]

Shane that is a huge improvement! I've read about it on the BMW board and they also indicated you have to do several applications if you want to level out the chiip.

By the way, how did you get the rubber rub strip off your front bumper? I need to take mine off and thought you had to remove the bumper to do it.

[SCWDP911]

Originally Posted by Greek55

I tried this on a Range Rover and it didnt work very well. Whenever I would use the "special sauce" to wipe off the excess it would take the paint out of the scratches.

I am still playing around with that. I find it is better to let the "paint" dry a while (you have up to 2 hours according to directions). But, it is a major pain to remove when letting it dry that long, especially when you have as big a job as I have here. This is why I recommend ordering extra "remover" liquid, so you are not as concerned about making it go longer (meaning you tend to scrub more than just lettign the chemical do the work - which is what DCC says to do in the directions for use). The paint actually goes quite a ways as far as coverage, but I think i might have to buy one more if I want to see the effect on the bumper I had on my hood. My bumper looked like someone shot bb's at it, from a bb machine gun!

So I think this product can work some "magic", but patience is key.

[SCWDP911]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

Shane that is a huge improvement! I've read about it on the BMW board and they also indicated you have to do several applications if you want to level out the chiip.

By the way, how did you get the rubber rub strip off your front bumper? I need to take mine off and thought you had to remove the bumper to do it.

Yes, patience and multiple applications look to be in ordser going this route, but even if I have to purchase another kit, not a bad improvement for less than $100 ($40 a kit).

The rubber strip is held on by two phillips screws (one on each end) and about a half dozen plastic clips. I think I got lucky in that my strip was able to be slightly manipulated to "roll" off of the the plastic t-clips (they slide into a groove on the backside of strip). And luckier still, each of my plastic clips were able to be removed gently from the bumper without damage, so i was able to reuse them all. Knowing what I know now, I might make sure I had a set of replacments on hand just in case. At a minimum, make sure the bumper is in a warm environment prior to attempting removal, otherwise they will surely be more likely to break off. Good luck!

[joefrantz]

Shane -- your results look great.

For those having trouble with the process, here are a couple of tips that may help.

The company had a rep at this years PCA Parade here in CO. They were doing free touch-ups and I had the opportunity to watch for about half an hour.

A few things that I noticed:

He massaged the paint into the chips using his index finger (with latex glove) -- no brush. He just dipped the finger lightly into the paint and smeared away. When asked about this he said the paint stayed in the chip better when doing the wipe-off step.

His drying time was very short -- 30 seconds max. Paint does dry faster here because of the altitude -- plus he was outdoors in summer. So, at sea level you may want to extend to 45-50 seconds.

When he wiped it off, he used broad strokes with very little pressure. The cloth wash wet with solvent, but not dripping. He also removed the residual solvent immediately.

When doing rash (as opposed to individual chips) he only did about 1 square foot at a time.

Hope this helps.

Joe

[SCWDP911]

Thanks Joe. This confirms what I have been finding. I tried it the first way you suggested, but with a brush and then smear with thumb, but I was having problems with that. I think it is because my paint is metallic - DCC says metallics might need to age before applying due to there starting viscosity.

I was afraid I was not using enough solution on the rag and that might be the key to wiping it off so soon, as when I tried it quickly after application, most of the paint came right out of chips. Seems to be a bit of an art, but perhaps a conquerable one over time.