How To Repair Grit Paint Chips

There’s nothing worse than pulling into your drive, or parking your car on the road and doing a double take to realise that your paint has been chipped. To add insult to injury, you cast your mind back to your previous journey and realise it was grit from the road that did it. Whilst gritting the roads is essential in cold, icy weather and ultimately is there for your protection, it can be extremely frustrating when your car is damaged due to grit splashback. However, there is an easy solution to grit paint chips. Take a look at our handy guide on how to repair grit paint chips. Damage limitation First things first, if you’re following a gritting lorry then be sure to leave a good distance. Sometimes if you get too close to one you’ll start to hear that horrible chipping sound which means your car is being hit by tiny specks of grit - not a good look. Instead, keep a good distance and leave enough room when overtaking a road gritter to limit the damage in the first place. Here’s what to do if your car has already taken the hit and has been scratched by grit.

1. Clean the car up

To make it easy to see whether there’s damage you need to make sure your car is clean. Sometimes, as with all scratches, they can be wiped off quite easily without the need to have a paint repair. Use a quality shampoo to make sure that you have got any excess dirt off before painting the chip.

2. Choose your paint

Before going full steam ahead, be sure to use a quality touch up paint that is an exact match to your car. Many paint companies won’t have exact matches, so be sure to find your car’s perfect match before you can find your colour code easily by using our colour code location guide or getting it from your manufacturer. We can help you with this to ensure that you get the right product for your car.

3. Apply the paint

Apply the paint onto the damaged area with a Chipex paint applicator brush and then smear the paint across the chipped area with your thumb whilst using gloves to protect your hands. Then leave to dry for between 40 seconds to 5 minutes.

4. Apply blending solution

Once the paint is touch dry, apply a small quantity of blending solution to a cloth and use light pressure to run the cloth across your car and remove the excess paint. Leave this to dry for 5 minutes until you are ready to polish the chip up until it looks brand new.

5. Polish

Apply finishing polish to a microfiber cloth to polish the paint chip. Once the polish has dried to an opaque haze gently remove with the Microfibre cloth. During winter paint grit chips can become an issue and it’s essential that you alter your driving to suit the winter conditions. Check out our blog on how to avoid chips and protect your car paint so that you can protect your car in any weather.