[Hypnosis]

Sorry, I placed this originally in the introduction forum... I meant to place it here...

Hello to all... I own a 2010 Mazda 3 - 2.5L S Sport - Sedan - Liquid Silver,
I have about 1400 miles on it.

I recently have needed to take the highway a lot and on one of my most recent trips I noticed a small ding from road debris on the lower part of my hood, not huge but visible!!! I know, I know, I should have equipped a face cover before heading out, and I will from now on but I was concerned about what I can or should do to the small chip, I'm worried that this could lead to rusting if I dont take care of it. I read online about touch up paint but the ding has bumpiness that might give me problems with just dabbing paint on it!? What would a body shop charge to do this for or is it a do it yourself job.. Any advice would be appreciated...

 

[Dubcnea]

don't take this as smart ass...but call a body shop and find out. in fact, call a few..that'll give a good average of what it will cost. touch up paint is for nicks and surface chips. a physical dent and chip combo needs to be handled by either a professional or some dent eliminator place and then you fix the chip.

 

[Yamazaki02]

There is a few different way I would approach this.
Touch up paint is a must though..Like you said unprotected metal surface will get rusted.

Depending on how patient and steady your hand is you can try putting a really minimal amount of paint at a time and layer it until you got to an acceptable level.

Or you can do one big blob and then slowly wet sand the bump with 2000 grit sandpaper and then polishing the area to make sure you got them to blend in. (had this done on my bumper because it got a rock chip while waiting for my clear bra to arrive).

You can also try removing the bump with something like Langka.
I have 65 percent success with Langka on my previous car. I guess I'm not skilled enough to use it yet.

Please be aware that the list above are just suggestions, something that I did on my cars for my rock chip problems, don't be blaming me if you tried and got the paint all messed up or didn't get the result that you want. :mellow 1:

It's impossible (at least in my experience) to make the touched up area to be perfect. But at least it can get to a decent state and help prolong the life of the body from rust.

 

[Yamazaki02]

Oops missed the ding part.
Dubcnea is right, ding is something that need to be handled by a professional.

Rock chips you can try to fix yourself.
Besides it will be really expensive to have them fixed, especially when we are talking about good body shop.

A really good local shop quoted me about $900 to fix about 21-22 rock chips and scratches on my wife's car (hood and bumper).
Got all of those when an a$#&ole driving a pickup truck with an open tailgate decided that he needs to pass me while I'm doing 70 on the fast lane. Really regretted moving to the middle lane to let him pass.
Looks like he was using the truck to carry rocks/gravel so for a couple of minutes the wife's car got pelted by rocks.
The car was 3 weeks old at the time and have 0 rock chip.
Oh well

don't take this as smart ass...but call a body shop and find out. in fact, call a few..that'll give a good average of what it will cost. touch up paint is for nicks and surface chips. a physical dent and chip combo needs to be handled by either a professional or some dent eliminator place and then you fix the chip.

 

[Hypnosis]

Thanks for the responses... when I say "ding" - "chip" its more chip than ding... lol. A high speed flying rock chipped the paint to under the clear coat no denting but the chip has some paint from the car in it, exposing some gray beneath the top paint. I don't know about sanding... it make me nervous sanding the car. I think I will check some body shops and maybe the dealer I got it from, the only problem with not taking it to a dealer is the nearest dealer is over an hour away in Tampa and I live in a small town so theres not much to pick from. Also I fell like an ass paying for body work on one chip... I'll try to get some pics up sometime today. Thanks for the advice everyone...