[Zircular]

Am I nuts or is the sheet metal on these cars unusually prone to damage? I’ve never had anything pick up little parking lot dings and chips like my 2. One was my own dumb fault losing my grip on something in the garage. Thought it would amount to nothing due to the slow, lightweight impact but no, left a nice little dent on the wheel arch.

[aerobod]

Seems to be more hail resistant than our Macan (after a hailstorm that required a small amount of PDR on the Porsche, but non on the BMW) and definitely more so than any current Toyota where the panels flex easily under thumb pressure, so I would say my experience is the opposite of yours.

[Zircular]

Could be a matter of what I’m used to. My XC70 is coming up on 10 years and over 100k miles with a reasonable number of paint chips but the sheet metal is crazy strong. (Part of the reason the car weighs 4200lb, must be said.) By comparison the BMW is clad in foil. Oh well.

I’m probably going to have tint done on the 2 fairly soon. I may ask the detailer to give it a once-over and an opinion on repair options while it’s there. It has partial PPF that I assume to be original which is starting to fail. Might be time to get a little PDR, touch-up as necessary, and PPF the entire thing just so I don’t have to think about rust when it’s inevitably tagged again. Depends on cost but I can’t stand letting nice things go to shit.

[overcoil]

in the automobile industry are stamped steel cutter body cladding (panels) by different manufacturers different thicknesses ?

I'm not asking about the monocoque chassis but the doors skins, quarters panels and roof.

[Nickies]

They are easy to chip even when being driven carefully. Fortunately, we don't have abrasive on the roads during winter months and never experienced hail here on the Pacific coast Washington Peninsula.