Paintwork

Heres the deal, currently riding a Carerra TdF Ltd, covered about 350 miles, and already a few noticeable small circular chips in the black paintwork at the rear-end, deep enough to feel the difference in level, and obviously the metalic/white chips look a bit nasty on the black paintwork. Is this just the result of a cheap(ish) halfords bike? I say this because i have a 25 year old black raleigh frame that has covered about a gozzilion miles and it has scuffs and some wear, but literally NO back to the metal chips!
Anyway, just a general question, and wondered if anyone else has noticed anything similar, is it just to be expected? is paint not as good as it used to be?
Thinking of getting one of those little car touch up kits with black paint to fill in the chips with on a yearly basis to keep the frame looking fresh, anybody else do this?
Cheers.
Anyway, just a general question, and wondered if anyone else has noticed anything similar, is it just to be expected? is paint not as good as it used to be?
Thinking of getting one of those little car touch up kits with black paint to fill in the chips with on a yearly basis to keep the frame looking fresh, anybody else do this?
Cheers.
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Get the touch up pen
Any one particular company you recommend? Ive been looking and everything is 'mid-alaskan green' and 'marbled-lake blue'. To be honest, i just need black, and not for £35 either.
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£8.49 with a wide variety of choice, but to be honest it's all black so just pick whatever. You can also get just the black pen without primer or lacquer for £5.49. I've got a set of those pens for my car, a difficult to match dark blue Audi and in fairness to Halfords it's an excellent match and useful for covering large stone chips.
Does seem extensive on your bike though. My trek has done over 2000km recently and not a single stone chip.
I always feel that a gloss finish is more prone to stone chips. One of the attractions of the matt finish on my trek
Until you try to polish a scratch out..........!
This is almost certainly the cause. On my old cars, you could only chip off flakes of paint with a bit of force, and they were 2mm thick. On my last four new cars, one sneeze is enough to cause a paint chip. I think it's down to the use of a lot of water-based, or low volatile paint systems which are frankly rubbish IMHO.
Yet another reason to order directly from China - no pesky environmental bolleaux there. Lead paint for everyone!
NB its quite possible that nothing above is true