I'm getting my 2000 super black SE painted next week. I'm sick of the chips and scratches all over my car. The paint below the door moldings is chipped off down to the primer. Nissan has agreed to paint this portion of the car so I'm getting the rest of the car painted for $700 can. My grill is also peeling so they are going to replace the grill too. I'm wondering if anyone painted their grill black to match the car? My hood looks like someone shot it with a shotgun. Nissan paint is very poor quality and I just hope my new paint is alot better.

 

If Nissan paints it, you're likely to experience the same problems with the crappy paint. I had a minor fender bender two weeks after I bought my 2k Superblack Max with an SUV. It buckled the hood at the crumple zone and cracked my front grille in several locations. The front bumper and grille are one piece, which had to be replaced, along with my hood. They had to paint them both, because they don't come painted from the factory, since they have to blend them with the paint on your car, so they match perfectly. Guess what...the paint still chips. It may not chip as badly as the factory paintjob, but I still receive some large chips about as big as the end of a pencil eraser. Make sure that you inspect the car thoroughly after they complete the work, especially the newly painted areas. The first time they painted my grille, the paint had wrinkled, so I had them repaint it. Unless you get custom paint from a paint shop (not Maaco) or a place that specializes in painting cars, you will still have the same results with the Nissan paint. Good luck. Also, I recommend that you purchase a Carflector (Bugflector) from Ventshade. It's similar to the deflectors that you see on the front of pickup trucks, only it's a bit more streamlined. Peace.

 

Where do you guys drive to have the paint chip like that? My '01 Max is still spotless and I drive 100+ miles a day other than the bug stains on my windshield

 

I dropped off my max today to get painted. I gave them the go ahead to paint the grill black to match the car. I hope it looks OK. It's getting painted at an independent shop so hopefully the paint will be better than the factory stuff. I drive my max on the same roads that I've driven for the past 14 years and this is the first car that's chipped this bad. It's all highway driving, no dirt roads. The first thing I'm getting when I get it back is a hood deflector. Is the Nissan one as good as the other ones ?

 

This is the one that Pillager is refering to Caper: www.autostyles.com/carflect.htm it is not made by nissan, but it works well.

 

Holy crap, that is bad. Man where have you been driving?! lol... My 2001 is not like that yet, neither was my 2000 after 20k of miles it had.

I currently have 6200 miles on my 2001, and the paint is still find all over the car except the hood with a few chips. I zaino my car about once a month just to keep it awesome looking....and clean it once a week and detail to make sure it still looks good, still no paint issues.

Maybe a few of you guys got lemons on the paint?

 

Highways and roads travelled (Turnpikes & interstates)
Density of large trucks and idiot drivers (chipmobiles)
Proximity of vehicles to one another (<1 or 2 car lengths)
Excessive speeds in which they travel (85 mph+)
Disrepair of roadways (potholes, debris, stones, etc.)

The number of miles on your car isn't necessarily a direct correlation to the number of chips you will have, unless of course, you factor in the list above. I could have 10,000 miles on my car, but if it is not subjected to the above, I'm not going to have nearly the number of chips that someone with a high occurance of them will experience. I primarily drive in PA and NJ. Peace.

 

Well you should be happy, my Nissan is a salvage automobile and the Nissan dealer won't even talk to me...Not even mention repainting it, but the wind-deflector definitely helped you all know if the bugs on your hood stay for a few days some kinda chemical reaction occurs and with Nissans cheap a$$ paint can and does ruin the finish...

 

I'm glad you're getting it painted somewhere else because it probably wouldn't help much if it's repainted by the people that helped to create your dilemma in the first place. Good luck with the paint job and put up pics of the black grille when it's all done.

 

I got my max back today. They screwed up and painted the grill the original color and not black like I had asked. The paint looks OK except for a few dust spots here and there but I'll be able to see more first time I wash it. The worst spots is the overspray inside the door jams. Hopefully this will come off. I can't wait to see if this paint holds up better than the factory junk. I ordered my hood deflector from Nissan today so that should help the hood.