paints4u.com

It seems a bit weird giving a shout to a company, on here, but I was actually genuinely impressed by these guys, especially as Halfords hadn't managed to identify my paint colour from the manufacturer's code!

Anyway, I had a little stone chip on the front passenger door, which had been allowed to go unchecked for several months before I bought Dave, and the surrounding paint had bubbled. I rubbed it down and the metal underneath was pitted, so I daubed some Hammerite on it, to stop the rust. And then I went to Halfords...

A frustrated weekend later, I input the Rover code into Google, and found these guys. I bought a touch-up kit from them (primer, colour, lacquer and rubbing compound (polish)), and got to work. I made a fundamental mistake, mind you... Having masked off the area, I should have removed the tape and newspaper as soon as I'd put the lacquer "wet coat" on, in order to let it "spread". But I left it to dry, and then removed the tape, and as a consequence, the paint is the thickness of the masking tape, and looks like a patch!

Fuck it! I can't be an expert in everything, can I? All the same, the colour match is perfect, and the job serviceable. Besides which, it's at the bottom of the door so doesn't really notice, and I'm not going to spend £500+ getting a paint shop to respray the whole door, when Dave only cost me £2,500.

Anyway, if you need to get touch up paint, my recommendation is paints4u - it's cheaper than Halfords (£24 for the kit I bought), and the aftersales is good, too.

Fucking hell - that looks like an advert!