I went for a drive today. Got behind a lifted truck with all-terrain tires and no mud flaps and he kicked up a large rock. It bounced off my hood, taking with it two decent-sized chucks of paint, leaving a small scratch, and a small dent. It also damaged my windshield--a couple small scratches--but nothing I'm very concerned absout. Here's a picture of the damage to my hood: Imgur link.

I am going to visit my dealership on Monday and pick up a paint pen. I can't go until then because the parts department isn't open. Is there anything I should do to protect the damaged area over the weekend? It's going to rain all weekend and I want to make sure there's no chance of corrosion forming. Perhaps put a little quick wax on top of the scratches?

I'd also like some advice on how to use the paint pen so that the area returns (as best as possible) to its pre-damaged state.

Thanks, guys.

 

Some states require mudflaps on trucks. If you got their license plate, and they chipped your car they have to fix it.

 

A quick Google reveals that a lifted truck must have mud flaps if any part of the upper half of the tire can be seen, if looking from the back of the truck. I don't remember whether his were, but in any case, I did not get his plate number. Bummer.

 

It's Monday now so you'll probably have it touched up this evening...

But, just keep the area clean and dry with microfiber. No need to go crazy. Wax can't hurt, but it'll hinder the touch-up paint and be a bit of a pain to remove prior. You're better off touching up the chips first, then waxing the whole hood after it is dried. My hood has untouched paint chips from rocks and salt over from the past four years as a DD ****, and it has yet to show any signs of corrosion. The hoods are aluminum, so they're not as likely to get corroded as a regular steel hood.

 

OP, if you haven't done this yet, make sure to paint primer on to the section that needs to be repainted. Once the primer is dry, sand it smooth and then paint. Let the paint completely dry before adding more layers. I would also add a few layers of clear coat to the painted scratches.

Post some updated pictures once finished!

 

I've used the paint pens on my wife's Mazda3 and its a pain in the butt.
I recommend going to the body shop and ask them for a small bottle of the matching paint, like a few oz's would be way more then enough. Offer to pay for it and they might give it to you for free as they did for me because there wasn't any codes for it to charge me. Ditch the pen idea.

 

The pens work great if the area needing to be touched up isn't too big.

 

Update: Things got busy last week at work, so I didn't get around to the repair. My dealership doesn't have paint pens in stock, either, so I'm gonna order one through them, or somewhere else if it's cheaper.

I went ahead and put a little Meguiar's quick wax on it. I'll use something on it to take off the wax when I get around to repainting it.

I spoke to a guy at our local collision repair shop and he mentioned that primer should not be needed if the rock did not remove the factory primer as well. Looks to me like it didn't go all the way down to bare metal.

I hadn't considered the need to put clear coat over the fresh paint. Is it really necessary, or does the repair paint have any sort of protectant mixed in? And if it is required, does anyone know if the repair kit comes with some sort of clear coat pen as well?

 

The paint pen I got from the dealer was double ended, one side the factory paint, the other was a clear coat.

If anyone does get rock chips that go to bare metal ..mine did and started to rust, so I bought a for under $10, worked great to remove the surface rust.