The honest truth is that you cannot polish out a true stone chip, because a chip removes paint rather than just marking the surface. To fix stone chips you first have to know what you are looking at: a mark that sits in the clear coat, which paint correction and detailing can improve, or a chip that has gone through to the primer or metal, which needs touch-in paint or a respray. This guide explains what detailing can and cannot do, and how to stop chips happening in the first place.
Can car detailing fix stone chips?
Car detailing cannot fix a true stone chip, but it can greatly improve marks that only sit in the clear coat. Detailing and paint correction work by levelling the clear lacquer, so they remove swirls, light scratches and haze. A stone chip is different: the stone has taken a piece of paint away, and no amount of polishing can put paint back. What detailing can do is clean up the area around the chip and make the rest of the paint look its best.
What is the difference between a scratch and a stone chip?
A scratch usually marks the clear coat on top of the colour, while a stone chip knocks a small piece of paint out, often down to the primer or the bare metal. A quick test is to run a fingernail gently across it: if your nail catches in a pit and you can see a different colour at the bottom, it is a chip through the paint, not a surface scratch. That difference decides whether polishing will help or whether the chip needs filling.
Does paint correction remove stone chips?
Paint correction does not remove stone chips, because correction refines the clear coat and cannot replace missing paint. What paint correction removes is swirl marks, wash marks, holograms and light scratches that live within the lacquer, which is why a corrected car looks so much deeper and glossier. If your car has a mix of chips and swirls, correction will transform the swirled areas, but the chips themselves need a different fix. You can see what correction involves on our Paint Correction page.
Does detailing remove scratches?
Detailing removes light scratches that sit in the clear coat, using machine polishing to level the lacquer around them. Deeper scratches that have cut through to the colour or primer cannot be polished out safely, because there is only so much clear coat to work with. A good detailer checks the paint depth first and will tell you honestly which scratches will come out fully, which will improve and which need paint.
How to fix a chip that has gone through the paint
For a chip that has reached primer or metal, the options are touch-in paint, a specialist chip repair or, for the worst cases, a localised respray. Touch-in paint, built up carefully in thin layers and matched to your colour code, seals the chip against rust and makes it far less noticeable, though it will never vanish completely. A bad cluster of chips on a bonnet is often better dealt with by a bodyshop respray. The right answer depends on how many chips there are, where they are and how fussy you are about the finish.
How to stop stone chips in the first place
The only reliable way to stop stone chips is to put a physical barrier over the paint, which is what paint protection film does. PPF is a clear, self-healing film fitted over the panels that take the most hits, usually the bonnet, bumper, wings and mirrors, so the stones strike the film instead of your paint. It is far easier and cheaper to protect a clean bonnet than to repair a chipped one, which is why we fit Profilm PPF to so many cars across Plymouth. Our Paint Protection Film page explains the packages.
Frequently asked questions
Can you buff out a stone chip?
No. Buffing and polishing refine the clear coat but cannot replace the paint a stone has removed. A true chip needs touch-in paint or a respray, not polishing, though the surrounding paint can be polished to look its best.
Will paint correction fix a chip down to the metal?
No. Paint correction works within the clear coat, so a chip that has reached primer or bare metal needs filling with matched paint to seal it, not correcting.
Does PPF stop stone chips?
Paint protection film prevents the large majority of stone chips by absorbing the impact before it reaches your paint. No film is fully bulletproof against a hard, direct strike, but PPF dramatically reduces the chips your paint would otherwise take.
Contact Doyen Voss to have your car’s paint looked at in Plymouth, and to talk through correction or paint protection film.