Paint chip advice

[GarethWhyte]

Moderator comment - post renamed for clarity from "Paint advice"

Hello,

I have a 2021 Model 3 which is leased through the NHS scheme. I collected the car mid December and already I can count 15-20 paint ‘chips’ on the car.

Am I wrong to think this is excessive? Previously I had an Audi for three years which had maybe 2-3 on the front nose.

I am worried about how the paint is going to hold up for another 2 and a half years! I don’t drive it off road or over lose stones, I don’t have a gravel drive. Also what sort of charges I might face when handing the car back



Is this a case of poor quality paint or something else? Advice welcomed.

Thanks

Gareth

 

[intactradio]

I raised a service ticket for this last month and Tesla resprayed the affected areas so I’d definitely suggest raising it with Tesla.
That said I’ve seen a number of posts where Tesla have attributed the chips to wear and tear and gave refused to fix them. I’d suggest standing your ground in this case and perhaps involving your lease company so that you don’t get any nasty surprises when you hand the car back.
Their paint is notoriously bad. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a car where I’ve had paintwork issues like this.

 

[mrobins64495]

Hello,

I have a 2021 Model 3 which is leased through the NHS scheme. I collected the car mid December and already I can count 15-20 paint ‘chips’ on the car.

Am I wrong to think this is excessive? Previously I had an Audi for three years which had maybe 2-3 on the front nose.

I am worried about how the paint is going to hold up for another 2 and a half years! I don’t drive it off road or over lose stones, I don’t have a gravel drive. Also what sort of charges I might face when handing the car back



Is this a case of poor quality paint or something else? Advice welcomed.

Thanks

Gareth

I’d suggest they’ll just say no... I have a similar issue to that on my car and their general response was this is out of warranty and they have no good will allocation for this. Raise it with customer services.

I have bought a ChipEx kit which works well and is a good colour match.

 

[Peteski]

There have been many reports now of "soft" paint on 2021 Fremont built M3s. We have one but I haven't had chance to have a good look at the paintwork lately. I think it's okay, but there is already at least one small chip on the front bumper. But 15-20 chips is not normal! Our 3 year old 42k mile Model X has maybe 2 or 3 small chips on the front bumper and 1 slightly larger chip on the leading edge of the bonnet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Lets do the maths. You have accumulated 15-20 chips over 3 months. So in 3 years time you will have 180-240 chips at this rate! I would complain for sure. They already know it's a real problem and I believe the Musk even admitted it in a recent interview.

 

[Jason71]

Hello,

I have a 2021 Model 3 which is leased through the NHS scheme. I collected the car mid December and already I can count 15-20 paint ‘chips’ on the car.

Am I wrong to think this is excessive? Previously I had an Audi for three years which had maybe 2-3 on the front nose.

I am worried about how the paint is going to hold up for another 2 and a half years! I don’t drive it off road or over lose stones, I don’t have a gravel drive. Also what sort of charges I might face when handing the car back



Is this a case of poor quality paint or something else? Advice welcomed.

Thanks

Gareth

Where are the chips? mainly on the sides? can you post pictures? people on here will be able to say if normal but it does sound like it may be the 2021 soft paint issue.
If you think there is an issue then contact your lease company and report it to them as a fault on the car they have supplied you. Make it their problem not yours they own the car. Don't wait until the end of the term and be charged for it.
people have had mixed reactions from Tesla trying to get them to take responsibility.

 

[GarethWhyte]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to post, I've washed the car again and have the following:

Left side of the Bonnet 9 'Chips'
Right side of the Bonnet 6 'Chips'
Middle of Bonnet 4 'Chips'
Drivers door trim panel between window and glass roof 3 'Chips'
Passenger side rear door 4 'Chips'
Drivers side rear door 1' Chip'

Making a grand total of 27 'Chips' this is not including the grill area which you could reasonably expect to have some stone chipping. On the basis that I don't have a gravel drive and don't drive on gravel roads for my day to day milage and the car is 4 months old I'm not sure that's acceptable. To contrast my Audi S3 Saloon which I would argue is more 'aggressive' in body kit terms had 3-4 front bumper chips in 3 year ownership.

I'll raise a ticket with Tesla and let the Lease Company know.

Thanks

Gareth

 

[Peteski]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to post, I've washed the car again and have the following:

Left side of the Bonnet 9 'Chips'
Right side of the Bonnet 6 'Chips'
Middle of Bonnet 4 'Chips'
Drivers door trim panel between window and glass roof 3 'Chips'
Passenger side rear door 4 'Chips'
Drivers side rear door 1' Chip'

Making a grand total of 27 'Chips' this is not including the grill area which you could reasonably expect to have some stone chipping. On the basis that I don't have a gravel drive and don't drive on gravel roads for my day to day milage and the car is 4 months old I'm not sure that's acceptable. To contrast my Audi S3 Saloon which I would argue is more 'aggressive' in body kit terms had 3-4 front bumper chips in 3 year ownership.

I'll raise a ticket with Tesla and let the Lease Company know.

Thanks

Gareth

Are they actually stone chips or is the paint just flaking off, like some other reports have suggested? I ask because I would have thought it unusual to even get that many stone strikes in such a short time. I'm going to have a good look tomorrow, but I don't think I have any stone chips on the bonnet.

 

[Bobcat2112]

My 2021 MiC LR has 5 chips on the bonnet after 3 weeks and 2k miles and a ceramic coating. I’m quite annoyed considering I paid the extra for the red paint too. I’m now looking into chipex but I’ve never done any touch up work before (I’ve never had to). I’m tempted to go the SC route but doubt they’d do anything.

 

[GarethWhyte]

Morning,

Thanks for the further replies, I have added some images. Would really welcome everyone’s thoughts!

I will keep you updated on what the service centre say, might be helpful if anyone else decides to ‘challenge’

Thanks

Gareth

 

[mrobins64495]

Morning,

Thanks for the further replies, I have added some images. Would really welcome everyone’s thoughts!

I will keep you updated on what the service centre say, might be helpful if anyone else decides to ‘challenge’

Thanks

Gareth

These are pretty much the same as my car. Probably a little worse on the bonnet.

I’ve raised it with customer service.

 

[Peteski]

Morning,

Thanks for the further replies, I have added some images. Would really welcome everyone’s thoughts!

I will keep you updated on what the service centre say, might be helpful if anyone else decides to ‘challenge’

Thanks

Gareth

Based on those pictures, your front bumper ought to look like a battlefield. If it doesn't then I would seriously question whether most of those are actually stone chips or some other paint defect causing the paint to flake off. I've seen others posting about flaking paint, especially on the door sills.

 

[GarethWhyte]

These are pretty much the same as my car. Probably a little worse on the bonnet.

I’ve raised it with customer service.

Happy to keep you updated about mine, be handy to know if you get anywhere as well. Might be we can learn from each other’s ‘case’ I’m going to be pushing the lease company hard tomorrow.

 

[Peteski]

Just gave our 2021 M3 a clean and had a good look around for paint defects. At 2,500 miles it has one very minor stone chip in the middle of the bonnet, another 3 or 4 small chips in the front bumper, one of them is actually quite a deep cut. Door sills and wheel arches look okay, but there are a few minor chips on the rear door shut lines (on the body, not door) on both sides.

Not a disaster by any means, but considering the very low mileage I would say the paint on my M3 is pretty soft (this is white multi-coat). At this rate it's not going to look great in 3 or 4 years time. The paint (also white) on our 40k+ mile MX is holding up much better. Actually better than I would have expected for the mileage. Just one fairly large chip on the bonnet, which happened this winter, and a couple of small chips on the front bumper. It's really quite good and so the M3 is a bit disappointing by comparison.

Now I don't normally buy into the idea of PPF (very expensive and doesn't make a blind bit of difference to residual value), but in this case it might actually be worthwhile to get the front end and lower sides protected from new. It would have been a total waste of money on our MX because damage has been minimal anyway and the car will be replaced early next year. But the M3 has the potential to look pretty battle-scarred in a couple of years time without protection! Don't think I'll bother now and just live with it, but in hindsight I might have been tempted.

It will be interesting to see how warranty claims go on M3 paint quality. I think there are enough reported issues out there for some success, even if the SCs might push back to start with. Musk has certainly publicly admitted paint issues very recently, so it would be hard for Tesla to deny that a problem does exist.

 

[scooby0606]

anyone had success with this? my m3 has done 1200 miles (dec build) and in one particular area at this rate they may of well left the paint off

 

[GarethWhyte]

Evening all,

Car is going back to Milton Keynes Monday with a view to ‘paint’ will let you know the update.
Gareth

 

[Billbrown1982]

Jee. I actually thought we had this paint thing taken care of with the MiC cars - but seeing the post from a guy a few back about his red car looking that bad after a few weeks I'm SO glad I got PPF in the end.

That said, I cleaned my car last week and am 99% sure I've found a tiny chip under the PPF on the bonnet, which I must have picked up going from Bluewater to Harlow on collection day. Argh thats annoying.

 

[scooby0606]

anyone had success with this? my m3 has done 1200 miles (dec build) and in one particular area at this rate they may of well left the paint off

View attachment 656358

All sorted no questions asked!