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Who's experienced more than normal paint chips? Share your pictures

Messages
75
Reactions
10
State
NC
Country
United States
#1
Who's having issues with paint chipping on their front end because the paint just sucks? Right below the KIA emblem.
 
Messages
115
Reactions
7
State
KS
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Kia Stinger GT2 Micro Blue
#2
Ouch! Thank goodness I did PPF early on mine.
 
Messages
96
Reactions
8
State
TX
Country
United States
#3
I've got tons of rock chips and I don't drive on the highways that much either.
 
Messages
66
Reactions
14
State
Non-US
Country
United Kingdom
#4
Hitting your car with small rocks is always going to hurt.
My previous GM car looked like an angry farmer had attacked it with a shotgun when I traded it in.
 

MurlinatoR

1000 Posts Achieved
Staff Member
Messages
1,231
Reactions
303
State
IA
Country
United States
What I Drive
Lot's of Kia's
#5
Hitting your car with small rocks is always going to hurt.
My previous GM car looked like an angry farmer had attacked it with a shotgun when I traded it in.
I agree completely. Being in the business, I see all sorts of cars on trade and almost every single car has got chips in the front. Hard to do anything about catching gravel with the front at speeds over 40 mph.
 
Messages
101
Reactions
22
State
AL
Country
United States
#6
Pointed out some of them. It's only on the hood and nowhere else. The service manager claimed it's rock chips because he saw some chips in the windshield. I only saw bug strikes on the windshield so I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm calling the special stinger hotline in a few days to figure this out.


Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Messages
114
Reactions
18
State
Non-US
Country
Canada
#7
Black is affected too.
 
Messages
173
Reactions
46
State
CA
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Stinger GT1 + Drive Wise
#8
This is my third KIA, Titanium Grey Optima, Snow Pearl Optima, and my Aurora Black Stinger is chipping substantially more and my driving has been pretty similar with all three.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Messages
222
Reactions
27
State
AZ
Country
United States
#9
This is my third KIA, Titanium Grey Optima, Snow Pearl Optima, and my Aurora Black Stinger is chipping substantially more and my driving has been pretty similar with all three.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I feel the same, getting way more chips on this Kia than I have any other cars I've owned.
 
Messages
101
Reactions
22
State
AL
Country
United States
#10
I've made a claim with Kia. I got a call from their main representative and he said they had a customer's car in for investigation. He gave a few weeks time for their findings to come out.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Messages
222
Reactions
27
State
AZ
Country
United States
#11
I've made a claim with Kia. I got a call from their main representative and he said they had a customer's car in for investigation. He gave a few weeks time for their findings to come out.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
Keep us posted what you find out.
 

mattrain

New Member
Messages
18
Reactions
4
State
AZ
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Kia Stinger GT
#12
Oh..... just a couple.... 36 defects, 16 of which, if I was being nice, are from rocks, while the others are flakes... Tape shows locations... some more on roof and under hood...

7ABDE06E-0630-47C5-B6DE-4C594ABF4A5D.jpeg
 
Messages
49
Reactions
25
State
CA
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Stinger GT2
#13
Oh man this isn?t looking good. My worry is Kia knew about issue. Why would some of cars come with clear bras? I found that to be odd with my car.

Has anyone gone to consumer union? https://consumersunion.org/ They work on these types of issues and highly recccomend them to anyone having this paint issue. Can?t say my car has excessive chipping yet.
 
Messages
101
Reactions
22
State
AL
Country
United States
#14
Oh man this isn?t looking good. My worry is Kia knew about issue. Why would some of cars come with clear bras? I found that to be odd with my car.

Has anyone gone to consumer union? https://consumersunion.org/ They work on these types of issues and highly recccomend them to anyone having this paint issue. Can?t say my car has excessive chipping yet.
I think clear bras were a dealer add on? Some dealers might throw that in as a port installed option to pad profits.

I'm giving Kia a chance before I go any other route. They've already shown good faith by starting an investigation into it. Hopefully I'll hear good news from the issue relatively soon.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Messages
49
Reactions
25
State
CA
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Stinger GT2
#15
Clear bra wasn?t added to dealer sticker on my car? Wasn?t even mentioned. Just interesting that clear bras were available so early on .




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Messages
120
Reactions
8
State
IA
Country
United States
#16
Oh man this isn?t looking good. My worry is Kia knew about issue. Why would some of cars come with clear bras? I found that to be odd with my car.

Has anyone gone to consumer union? https://consumersunion.org/ They work on these types of issues and highly recccomend them to anyone having this paint issue. Can?t say my car has excessive chipping yet.
Clear bra are dealer add-ons, my dealer asked if I wanted it during the financing part. They tried to sell me on window tint and fabric protection too.
 

StingerMike

500 Posts Achieved
Staff Member
Messages
726
Reactions
76
State
MI
Country
United States
#17
Another member on the FB group having paint issues.
Brendan Knowles said:
Hey team, I know some of you will have heard my story and seen my posts but I continue to see people posting about paint issues who haven't. For those people, here is my story...

(Admins - could you pin this post?)

Im from Sydney, Australia and was one of the first in the world to take delivery of a Sunset Yellow Stinger last October.

About 24hrs after I collected the vehicle, I noticed the first chip in the paint. What followed was an alarming number of them and some very tense and honest discussions between myself, the dealer and Kia Australia. The car was inspected three times and finally after trying to play hardball, Kia agreed to do a bare metal respray on the entire car, which took six weeks.

From what was explained to me, this issue exists on EVERY Stinger manufactured to date and the issue is that they only applied an etch primer on the raw panels and then applied a white base coat which they baked at high temperature for a considerable amount of time. Then they applied the colour and clear etc and baked again.

Apparently there shouldn't normally be an etch primer nor should they fully bake the white base coat. They did it apparently because they were having issues with the paint adhering to the bonnet because it's aluminium and Kia have never used aluminium panels before. So they developed this process and rather than just use it on the bonnet, they did the whole car so there wasn't any cosmetic difference. However the process is not a proven way of making paint adhere to aluminium, let alone any other surface.

It was suggested that they were desperate to get the car into production and meet deadlines to they did what they had to, which has ended up with where we are today.

To anyone affected, if I can offer advice.....push for a total respray. Individual panels will not fix the issue as it will likely appear on others later on, not to mention trying to colour match.

I reiterate that when they removed my front and rear bumpers, paint was literally flaking off the concealed surfaces. They also replaced both bumpers and the bonnet. The bonnet was replaced as the original was used in destructive testing at PPG at Eastern Creek in Sydney and then sent to Korea is my understanding. There were also executives from Korea, in Australia who inspected my vehicle.

Apparently any warranty claim greater than $5k, must be approved by head office in Korea. So it isn't Kia US or Canada or Australia that you will be battling. They will most likely be on your side even if it doesn't seem it. They originally offered me a full refund and refused to assist me in buying another one. I told them to forget it and that I would keep the car and go to the media, get the paint independently tested to find out the real issue, as well as park it outside their biggest dealers every weekend. That is when they finally agreed to a respray.

Even during respray, it took quite a bit of effort to get the body in a clean condition and rid of all of the original etch primer and base coat. You can just tell now how much better the paint is. It even looks and feels thicker (stupid I know)

But to be clear, this issue is NOT restricted to a certain colour/s. I have seen and heard from owners all over the world and have had reports for EVERY colour. In point form, the problems are:

- Etch primer used
- No normal primer
- Base coat applied on etch primer
- Base coat baked when it shouldn't be
- Because of the poor prep, the colour coats are very thin.
- Where panels run together, paint will flake/peel.

I hope this helps and feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or need more info. I want to help as many people as possible.

Cheers

Brendan

P.S. I have also included a copy of the Kia paperwork I was given when collecting the vehicle after respray.

 
Messages
101
Reactions
22
State
AL
Country
United States
#18
This is all great information. It was as I initially suspect, bad painting process. I hope they provide a legitimate fix for this issue...

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Messages
49
Reactions
25
State
CA
Country
United States
What I Drive
2018 Stinger GT2
#19
Another member on the FB group having paint issues.
My sense is that info in this post is a bit suspect. While yes some cars have had paint issues it?s not likely related to one nonexistent aluminum hood or etching primer. Probably more to do with curing process of paint.
 

StingerMike

500 Posts Achieved
Staff Member
Messages
726
Reactions
76
State
MI
Country
United States
#20
How crappy is this?


 


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