700 miles and already a handful of stone chips!

[aea730]

Is there nothing Lotus can do about paint resilience. I have a new SC Elise, 700 miles on the clock and already I have at least 6 chips across the front. I have a land rover with 30k on the clock and only 4 or 5 chips. Whats the problem with Lotus paint?

[Esprit]

It's more that the nose is so low so the stones hit it. With a land-rover, most of the stones go underneath the painted bits. Look at how many stonechips are on your roof... that's about the level of a range rover bonnet

[bogie]

always go for the paint protection film option on new paint ....learnt that one the hard way and ended up respraying later ...its not just Lotus, Aston are the same, with water based paint on plastic cars

[simpo555]

Surprised to see this happens so quickly. Is it down to the state of British roads or perhaps driving style. After 4500 miles in France, I have only one 'imperfection' on the front clam. Because its a rhd car in Europe I have to keep my distance to allow me to overtake safely. This means I'm rarely too close to the car in front, which I would imagine is a factor. Roads here are far from perfect and I fear the arrival of so called repairs, which simply increase the amount of gravel etc on the roads. Otherwise, a question of colour? Whatever, I feel for you because we all like to see our pride and joy remain in the best condition possible for as long as possible. I'm sure I'd be going nuts too in your position.

[THHLEEDS]

Yep, had exactly the same problem, its enough to make you cry when your new pride and joy starts getting acne after so few hundred miles (especially as I was keeping my distance when following other cars). Paid a visit to the chaps at Venture-shield in Daventry when I realised how soft the paint seems to be. Its so well worth it.

I only wish the dealer had said how poor the paint is on their cars so that I could have got it filmed up before collecting it.

I understand that the environmentalists have had their wicked way so that it is only possible to use pants water-based paint and not the good old stuff. Surely Lotus should accept the problem and at least offer the film as an option if not make it standard fit especially as you can spend up to 45K on an exige.

[Beachbum]

Its not just poor roads, or the lowness of the Elise, it is also the poor quality of the paint itself.
My car went in to the Dealer because the chips were so bad. The Dealer agreed, but could do nothing without a Lotus engineer seeing it first. Thankfully thy had one scheduled to arrive a week later.
He looked at it and agreed it did look bad and asked how many miles the car had done. I thankfully reversed the question and asked how many he thought it had done, his response 7-8K. When I told him less that 3K, he agreed it was unacceptable and Lotus coughed up a front clam respray.

Might be worth a go ?

[Bebee]

Don't forget, there are still stones on the road and in the gutter from the gritting over winter, all it takes is for someone to drive near the gutter and bring it all out.
I've had protection on mine from new and it's doing it's job very well but it still gets chipped on the lower door sills.
It will be chipped more so on the near side, as this is where most of the road gutter ste is.
I've just had mine detailed at £210, it looks great but it left me a little depressed, because it shows up all the imperfections, including some factory paint imperfections. So no more detailing for me, just good old road dirt!

[TOENHEEL]

I've got a big stonechip on my exige that I want to sort, ice White is the colour apparently very rare, can anyone suggest what to fill the chip with before touching in with a lotus paint stick?

[R-Racer]

Totally recommend 3m film for front clam etc,ive covered 8k miles in a year,used all year round and not a single chip on the front. I believe its luck and staying away as much as possible from motorways.

[400SE Dave]

Had my exige a few months and it was starting get peppered so I went for a the full Ventureshield kit of front clam, splitter, front access panels, mirrors, complete side sills, leading edge of the side scoops and behins the rear wheels. It has really don its job, I can tell that by looking at the tiny part of the splitter that wasn't covered and it has been well and truely slapped!!!

Worth the money for me, wish I had known about these protection films before I collected the car.

Here is a link to the ones that did mine, this is my car after it was done

http://www.bodyguarduk.com/lotusexige.html

[TOENHEEL]

Further to my previous post my cars already got venture shield on it however the bloody big stone decided to miss all of that!!

[ShieldandProtect]

R-Racer said:

Totally recommend 3m film for front clam etc,ive covered 8k miles in a year,used all year round and not a single chip on the front. I believe its luck and staying away as much as possible from motorways.

You should spec. which 3m film you recommend as they have bought the rights to distribute many different ones.

[MrSimba]

On my 4th Lotus now and would'nt be without the VentureShield.

Picked my Elise SC up with 12 miles on the clock from Richard at Stratstone Stourbridge and left it in my garage for two weeks before VentureShield could fit it in!

Worth it though as now I can enjoy the car without worrying the paints going to fall off as I drive it!!!

The did the whole front clam in 3 pieces and removed the 'OE' sill protection and replaced with the full inner & outer sill done in one piece,

http://www.covertechmidlands.com/

being applied -



Can you see where the film is...