I have been looking at used 458's but a couple I looked at had rock chips on the hood. What is the best way to repair these? If I have the hood repainted will it diminish the resale value? Of course I would put a clear bra on the front clip after the rock chips are repaired
There are a lot of clear bras out there, but some of them like the cars so much that they take the paint with them when removed. Do some serious homework before choosing someone to do the work. Or do what I do; I have an artist go over my cars every year of two. I have never had a 1/4" ding, but that would go through a clear bra anyway.
It depends on the size of the chip. Langka, Dr Color Chip and DIY is what I recommend for small, medium and larger chips, respectively. For DIY you purchase the base coat and clear coat from automotivetouchup.com. I did a comprehensive writeup on the DIY but forgot where I put it. I had an appointment to have my front bumper resprayed, so for a couple of weeks beforehand, I practiced and practiced and practiced. I sanded and sanded the clear coat until I cut all the way through so I could get a feel for how much to sand. I know that clear coats are varying depths, but still this is a good idea (as opposed to using the hood of your $300,000.00 car for your first try).
I would just have the hood repainted. It will not show up on Carfax and as long as you are changing colors, it should be un-noticeable, especially if you have a good body shop do the work. I had rock chips on my hood and after trying to carefully fix, I ended up just having a body shop repaint the hood. It looks brand new.
If it's non-metallic paint, then chips are quite easy to repair with Langka. You overfill the chip with paint, let it partially dry, and then level it to the surface with Langka. Once you get the feel for it and if you use factory paint from the dealer, you will not be able to tell where the chips were repaired. For metallic, it isn't as easy to get a seamless match, but for non-metallic it works GREAT.
The photo would look like a red hood -- you literally cannot see where the repair has been made as long as the paint is exact. The way Langka works is you overfill the chip with paint, then let it partially dry for 30ish minutes, then use Langka to level out the paint bubble with the body surface so that it is perfectly smooth. It is easy to do a perfect job on solid colors as long as the paint is an exact match. It's more difficult to do a great job on metallic because (at least the paint I was using) didn't look good without clear coat, and it is tricky to level out clear coat because the paint layer below it is already leveled out from the first pass of paint with Langka. For solid colors, you don't really need to do clear coat and I can't see a color difference without clear.
