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    Stone chips - Arghh!

    I've had my cayman s for almost 18 months now and have a lot of stone chips and scratches on the front bumper and bonnet. I know that agonising over this is part of the 'ownership experience' but having waxed the car a few weeks ago i noticed how bad they are. I do a lot of motorway driving - my commute to work is pretty much all motorway - so i understand that this is what i can expect. However, on my old 3 series BM the problem wasn't any way near as bad. I suspect it might have something to do with the slope of the bonnet - but that's purely speculation.

    As it stands i've go a lot chips on the lower part of the front bumper and the front half of the bonnet (although not the front wings).

    The question now is what to do? I am considering a re spray of the affected area towards the end of the year and installing one of those clear (3M?)shields on the front part of the car (planning to cover the full bonnet instead of just half to avoid a line showing). I was wondering if anyone in the UK has done this and has knowledge of reputable installers around London/south east and could tell me what the cost would be? I suspect the respray would be somewhere around the Pounds750 - Pounds1,000 region but need to weigh up the full cost before making the decision.

    On another note, over the past 18 months of ownership i haven't been that impressed with the quality of porsche paint. To me the paint seems quite 'soft' and scratches a lot easier than my previous car (2002 BMW 330ci) which was also black. A colleague of mine has had similar problems with his 2000 boxster and when speaking to a porsche approved body shop about it was told that 'there's nothing wrong with the paint - you just aren't looking after it properly'. Good service that, but perhaps i'm just being overly paranoid.

    Any thoughts?

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    No OPC in London has its own paint shop. Try Abridge in Loughton. They are a VW dealership that does all the paint work for OPC E London. They seemed good. I would install Ventureshield if given the choice. Not sure where in the UK that's possible though.

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    I had to re-spray whole front bumper last month. Stone chips are a fact of life if you drive your car daily.

    Good news that a re-spray looks 100% like new

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    My first Boxster looked like the front end had been gritblasted after 5,000 miles. Immediately after delivery of our current car we had 3M film applied by Armourfend, recommended by Porsche Centre Bournemouth. They did a first class job, and I've not had so much as mark on this car in 9,000 miles. They came out to me and did the job at my work premises, taking around 3 hours to complete the fitting.

    Contact details :-

    Armourfend, Unit 33 Hillgrove Business Park, Nazeing Road, Nazeing, Essex EN9 2HB. Tel : 01992 892896. Website : www.armourfend.com. Email : info@armourfend.com

    Herewith copy of their quotation in October 2006 for info :-

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    Leaving a bigger distance between you and the car in front also helps.

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    Have a look at www.drcolorchip.com first - its not cheap at around Pounds50 but i've seen spectaular results on a subaru P1 whereit looked like someone had thrown rocks at the front of it, never mind stone chips !

    Re: Stone chips - Arghh!

    My own experience of Armourfend was appalling. I know this is very much an "installer" issue and not the company but I've seen maybe 6 or 7 installations by Armourfend and not one was any good. One of the reasons I never had my car done from new having seen these installations previously.

    There is only one person to take your car to to have it protected and that's a guy called Nick Phelps. He will also organise the respray at the same time to limit getting the even more stone chips before the shield is applied. I understand the resprays are also to a very high standard.

    He installs the Ventureshield product BTW.

    Contact (Office Hours) 01296 663277. They come highly recommended.

    DMS Automotive

    thanks ResB may go for that..

    On another note, have any of you heard of a company called DMS Automotive? They do an ECU upgrade for the cayman which gives approx a 25bhp increase. Cost is Pounds850+VAT. I've read good things about their tunning packages for the turbo (996 & 997). In fact have been for a drive 996 turbo with a DMS chip and it was quite frankly unbelievable. However, no reviews of the cayman S package so not sure if its worth it. Will I really feel the difference that 25bhp will make?

    Re: DMS Automotive

    This is your lucky day.

    I have had my car remapped by DMS.

    http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=35680

    Read this thread first, then PM me and I'll tell tou what the current situation is if you're interested.

    Re: DMS Automotive

    Automotive paint is softer now compared to before. Porsche is especially bad. You can blame the various enviromental concerns that have caused the switch to water based paints that just are not as strong as oil based paints of yester year. You can really see this on how easily pure black cars mar. Hopefully porsche will switch soon to the newer nano paints that stay swirl free longer.

    But this does not really help with stone chips though.

     
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