Ouch - I grazed my chin

[Billy69]

Damnit, I bought my beautiful Lotus just a month ago, took it to show my parents this weekend, and due to council incompetence managed to ground the chins getting into their driveway due to a sunken drain.

I may seem calm, but really I am a uptight ball of fury.

Anyway, here are some pictues of the passenger-side chin


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and the driver side.

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:-(


So, I have a few questions.

How bad is this?
How much will it cost?
Should I go to my local Stratstone (Lotus dealer)?
Can I get Lotus paint? Could I do this myself?
Does anyone know anywhere reasonable in Leicester to get this sorted?
The driver side is really very cosmetic and hidden under the car. Could I just touch it up and forget it?
Would the chin guards have prevented this, and are they worth getting?


Thanks for your patience!

[Pied Piper]

Get used to it, TADTS, that front area is very easy to scrape.

Did it to mine the second day after a front end repaint. Have seen some cars with small homemade skid plates underneath, with these I would be more worried about cracking the clam.

Have though about fitting a splitter as a warning device but again worried about further damage to the clam.

I'll wait till I get the stonchips done and get it repaired at the same time.

I would just get some touch up and cover the worst of it for now.

Sorry it's not much help.

[Billy69]

Yeah, I pretty much guessed that. Grr.

Is it possible/advisable to use standard car bodywork filler to do a temporary fix? Can you get Lotus paint in a spray can?

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

I usee my front plate like a bulldozer at Meadowhall the other day - thankfully the curbs weren't any higher and it was just bark chippings the piled up in front, oops.

[tricky 100]

Thats why i have a large Ply board in the gutter outside my drive ,always have problems with low cars due to the camber of road and steep ramp .

[VTECMatt]

Mine has gaffa tape over it

[jb111s]

I've done worse where it took a big chunk out of the lip. Cost me about 250 quid to get repaired & resprayed by fibreglass services. Would never know it happened by looking at it now.

[Billy69]

Yeah, I drove it back from South Wales to Leicester with gaffer tape over it :-)

So, with it being this 'minor' does anybody have any idea of cost?


Cheers.

[tom1977]

Did pretty much the same with my car a few months back. I glued the chunks of fibreglass back in place and painted the grazed bits with a Lotus touch up paint stick, then just forgot about it for a while.

The cost of having the fibreglass repaired and painted was < £200. If it's just the paint I'd have thought around £100 (chipsaway?). I ended up having the bottom of the front clam resprayed to get rid of the stone chips, along with both sills and one of my wheels for about £700 (David Underwood). Car looks mint now

Nearer to you Horizon in Birmingham are pretty good.

You could seat the front plate a little lower to give you some warning, or as others have suggested a splitter, although that will sit lower still and you might end up doing more damage.

Tom

[Billy69]

OK, so I understand that it might be better to wait until more numerous issues need addressing before just getting the whole front clam repainted.

Bearing this is mind, are there any compelling reasons NOT to fill over with some halfords body filler and use a Lotus touch-up to hide the damage until I get a full repair?

Cheers.

[shedbuilder]

Billy69 said:

OK, so I understand that it might be better to wait until more numerous issues need addressing before just getting the whole front clam repainted.

Bearing this is mind, are there any compelling reasons NOT to fill over with some halfords body filler and use a Lotus touch-up to hide the damage until I get a full repair?

Cheers.

I did mine on one side, silly french kerbs. I was thinking of filler and touch up, after all its not something that you see everyday (unless you spend time on yer back!) an would only have a minor snag if you come to sell it. Not as if it will cause rust!

[Columbo]

if you are going to do a home repair try and keep it as localised as possible, buy some masking take (halfords) tape up that area.

The touch up pen kits are ok for small stone chips etc..

if you use the pen kits, then after you have put the base coat on you might need to(again locally) wet and dry paper that are to get it smoother before you apply the laquer, but the scratches might be a bit deep anyway. It will help and won't look as bad but the elises are prone to it.

either that or drive it to me and ill do it properly

[Billy69]

Hmm, that's an interesting offer as I might be up in Cheshire mid-December. I'll keep that in mind, ta.

[Columbo]

well if you come for when i open i am going to offer 10% off in the first month as well as an additional 10% to pistonhead members for any service that we offer.