Stone Chips and Smart Repair Quality?

[paddyhasneeds]

I know most of these folks are franchises so the quality can differ massively, but has anyone any recent experiences of smart repair folks and stone chips?

I have a couple on the side of my car that have gone through to the primer, the car's only a few months old, and despite the "you'll always get stone chips" argument, if I can get them sorted to a decent standard for £100 or there abouts I'd be prepared to do so.

However, I have visions of poorly blended paintwork and all sorts when you'd think someone would have made the paintwork equivalent of a small pencil-top eraser that can "punch" out a small piece of paint and then fill it in seamlessly.

Closest I've ever come to keying someone's car when I got back to the car park and found some prick had parked six inches from my car and opened his door into mine causing one of the chips.

[steveatesh]

I foolishly took out a stone chip insurance when I got my car nearly 2 years ago. In fairness to date I've used them for four chips, but the repairs were merely mixing the right colour and dabbing it into the chip, drying it using an infra red heater and that's that. The chip is still there but look like how you describe.

Compared to a Chipex kit my son bought for £50 the professional has not delivered better results. For small chips I'd go for the kit and do it myself.

[Engineer1]

IIRC they can't get good matching/ invisible repair if the paint damage is down to the bare metal, much like any touch up job.