Polish hood before fixing rock chips?
 

I am planning on going to a body shop to fix some small rock chips. The hood has some swirls. They claim their process is to sand some stuff down, fix the chips, and clear coat the entire hood.

1. Does this sound right?
2. Should I have the hood polished before they do this and put clear coat on it? - the whole part will get sanded, Okay.
3. What should it cost for a body place to fix two rock chips on my hood front fender near the headlights (curved part)? Size: 1/3 of your index finger thumbnail. Two of them, near the headlight. Looks like some rusting...but I thought it's aluminum?


Thanks in advance, and any other advice would help here. I never cared about rock chips until this car, and it's white.

It won't be 100% perfect, but have you tried just using touch up paint or Dr.Colorchip? If they are going to wetsand, polishing isn't neccessary I don't think. If they put a new coat of clear, I would think they need to "rough up" the existing so it has something to adhear to, not to mention they would have to remove any contaminants.

The hood is alumimun, but stuff that lands on your car isn't...and that's probably what's rusting.

After further inspection (didn't remember correctly), the chips are actually technically on my fender to the left of the driver's side headlight. So that's why I see rust. How does Dr. Colorchip work with rust? My paint is Pearl White - would I use Dr. Colorchip's swatch or use the touch up paint the dealer gave me?

Repped BTW - thanks for reading.

You should try and remove the rust 1st. Aquartz Iron Cut can be used to remove iron contaminants on the surface without damaging the paint. I'm not sure how effective it will be if the area is deep/large.
http://www.detailersdomain.com/Aquar...Cut_p_327.html

Dr.Colorchip matches your factory paint. It works best on smaller chip's the size of a sesame seed or smaller. It's a no-brainer system because you just glob some paint on the spot and wipe away the surrounding area with the solution it comes with after a few minutes. It's finicky on larger chips though. You might have better luck with the touch up paint the dealer gave you if the chip is larger. Apply in very thin coats and take your time with it. The biggest mistake with how people use touch up paint is to just glob the brush on there. You'll want very little paint on the brush and alow it to dry between coats.

Thanks - I will try to snap a picture later on.