[The HACK]

I sort of wished I had taken pictures, because this second time around, the result was pretty darn impressive.

More than half a dozen year ago I had tried Dr. Colorchip on the MZ4 Coupe to "hide" some of the chips from numerous times spent on Auto Club Speedway following cars in front through turn 2 at 120+mph. The first time through I wasn't too impressed, the product was difficult to apply and even more difficult to remove, all the meanwhile it stank like crazy and I was getting high from the fumes. And while it did a pretty good job at hiding all the minuscule, pin sized blemishes, it did NOTHING to hide anything larger than a pin and deeper than clear coat.

After nearly 10 years of operation, quite a few more times following traffic at high speeds at various local tracks, the front end of the MZ4 Coupe is sand blasted far more than I can possibly stand at this point. So I took the front bumper off to the local trusty bodyshop to have it resprayed (rather than stripped and resprayed, I just have them fixed the scrapes on the fins and repaint it. More on that later). After putting the newly repainted bumper on, it made all the small chips that much more obvious than ever before...At least before, with the bumper so badly sandblasted, it was easier to ignore the amount of carnage on the leading edge of the hood and front fender.

Under various light conditions, from more than 6 feet away, it just looks like the front hood and fender is dirty no matter if you've just washed it. I got the Dr. Colorchip product about a month back intending to fix 2 moderate sized chips on the door (thanks to my 7 year old) and a longish, deep scratch on the fender from probably another track event. I though I give the front hood and fenders another shot with the Dr. Colorchip.

The results were far better than I could have hoped for. The application is much easier this time, although I wished I had known about the "drip and squeegee" trick beforehand. But with the massive number of tiny chips on the hood, it would have been easier to just drip the paint and squeegee it across the surface. Instead, I dabbed the touch-up paint across small sections, and just used my fingers (wearing a glove) and spread it out. Each dab covers about a 3"x3" area and just methodically worked across the front 12"-15" of the fender and hood.

The big improvement on the product is their "blending formula." With their old formula, it smelled of nail polish remover and after 20 or so minutes of working with the product, I would get light-headed and couldn't continue. The new blending formula has no smell, and is a lot easier to work with than the old one. Again, with the old one I ended up breaking out a moderate polishing compound to get rid of the excess, and it still required quite a bit of elbow grease to remove with a machine orbital polisher. The new blending formula takes off the excess completely, and was easy enough to know when all the excess has been removed (you'll feel no resistance when wiping on the blending compound) to know to wipe off the compound with a terry or microfiber cloth.

The end result was significantly better too, where as with prior generation Dr. Colorchip, it still left the majority of the chips slightly larger than a pin prick visible. I don't know if the paint has been reformulated to stay in the chips better, but the last time when I ran the polisher in an attempt to remove the excess, it took off enough of the touch-up paint for about 20-30% of the chips to resurface. This time, using nothing but the blending compound to remove the excess, the result is much MUCH better. About 80% of the visible chips are gone. The only ones that are still visible have chipped past the clear coat or paint. Those will likely require multiple passes with the touch-up paint and maybe even some light polishing after it's dried to remove, and at this point I'm unlikely to take that next step to correct it. But at least, from 3' away, they're invisible. Only when you get up close and personal do you see the chip.

Again, I wish I had the foresight to take some pictures...Because the before and after, even as I was working my way across the hood, was quite significant. What I really liked though, is that the reformulated paint actually does quite a good job staying in microscopic surface scratches too. There were a few spots where the top most layer of paint has rubbed against either jeans or fingernails or whatever polyester material and had left very fine scratches that won't polish off, and with a quick application of the product and the blending solution, it completely disappeared. There's a small spot on the hood where I accidentally dragged some cardboard boxes across and those scratches are completely gone.

Whatever it is they did to improve the product, between when I tried it last about, oh, most have been 8 years ago, to now, has made it significantly better. Enough so I'm going to forego my plan of clear-braing the front end of the car, and just repaint the bumper every 5 years like I had originally planned, and just Dr. Colorchip every 2-3.