Washing my car this am, the front bumper and bonnet are basically peppered with small white chips, the car is 2 years old and has done 47k miles.

Compared to a mates BMW 318, which after 3 years and 60k miles had around 2 chips, I think this is a touch bad!

Do I have any recourse under warranty or is it just tough sh*t?

cheers,

greg

I dont think that the bodywork and paint is covered under warranty, certainly not after the 1st year anyway :( rust from the inside out is covered if you have had the bodywork services carried out regularly.

Pete

Yes, me :D

It was quite an involved process, requiring several visits to my dealer and a degree of resolve in the face of an initial brush-off from IM's warranty department. Their initial stance was that stone chip damage wasn't covered under warranty. I then pointed out (in a letter direct to IM) that the cars on the dealer's forecourt were in much better condition than mine, and that I considered the paint to be unfit for the purpose for which it was intended.

A couple of inspections and estimates followed, and eventually approval was granted and I had my front spoiler/bumper, bonnet and both driver's side doors resprayed. They did a fantastic job, and the colour match is perfect.

My car is a '00 V-reg, and had done about 25k miles when I first reported the problem. It was more than one year old.

Good luck,
Andy.

my dealer said to me that becouse it is a high performance car we tend to drive up the bumper off the car in front thus the stonechips so i sais to him are you saying that all impreza drivers all drive up the rear bumpers of other cars thus making them all bad drivers at which he just shrugged his shoulders
as you can imagine i dont have any time for them anymore
so good luck you will probably need it

Hmm.. got my first (and unlikely to be my last) stone chip yesterday, 1 day after picking the car up... doesn't seem to matter how far away from the car infront you are... Kinda of used to the paint not being all that now though..

But if it gets bad very quickly, I will take it up with IM this time.

Alex

What car have you got now then Alex? (I thought you'd left the fold for a while?) :confused::confused:

Matt :)

I recon you'll be lucky yo if the bodywork service (yearly) has lapsed. I had my bonnet repainted when my car was in being repaierd, the 'new'paint was much tougher than the original stuff and resisited chipping' much better!

Body service is at 1 year and 3 years. As long as you did the first one - and even that is only about underseal and rustproofing box sections - you should be OK. It's worth a fight, IMHO.

A.