Touch Up Paint for Soul Red Crystal

I have Sonic Silver and there is not even one chip on the vehicle yet.

Mazda uses water based paints like most of the automakers do these days. Robots spray on the coats. The process is state of the art, just like most automakers. The Soul Red Crystal and Machine Gray have one additional coat due to their unique aluminum flake properties.
 
We received our ‘17 with a chip on the door. Since it was shipped all the way to Germany from CO, there wasn’t much I could do.

No clear bra on this or my M4. War wounds = Character [emoji12]
 
A year later and still no damn pen. I picked up my 2017 CX-5, April 5th of last year. I have about a dozen chips now, even with the 3M clear cover. If I had known how crappy it was going to be I would have gone to a third party right when I got it and had gotten a full hood clear shield. With this many chips at this point it doesn't matter. I can't imagine what this car is going to look like in 5 years. I won't be buying Mazda again. This is ridiculous.
 
A year later and still no damn pen. I picked up my 2017 CX-5, April 5th of last year. I have about a dozen chips now, even with the 3M clear cover. If I had known how crappy it was going to be I would have gone to a third party right when I got it and had gotten a full hood clear shield. With this many chips at this point it doesn't matter. I can't imagine what this car is going to look like in 5 years. I won't be buying Mazda again. This is ridiculous.

Mazda hasn't provide touch up paint or touch up pens in most markets for quite some time now.
 
I finally got my paint pen not long ago. Honestly the custom aftermarket one step paint I bought matches better than the OEM 3 step pen, and is easier to work with for wiping out excess paint. I'll be using it from now on instead of the OEM and just clear coating with the OEM pen.

It is the proper 46V paint pen too.

But I tend to agree, this paint sucks ass. It chips far too easily. I'm up to a couple dozen large chips now, and a ton of smaller ones; most of which are clustered together, and not "random" like a rock chip would be. I have had the rig now for around 13k km and 7 months.

I cannot reiterate enough throughout these threads on the red paint, that my previous car before being totalled by an idiot driver had ONE rock chip, driving the same routes, plus more highway road trips on worse roads. This was at almost 24k km and 1 year into ownership. I could literally hear the rock bounce off the fender over my music in one of the quietest cabins - if not THE quietest - in the mid-size luxury market; it even left a small, very unnoticeable dent behind once I filled the chip.

I am thoroughly disappointed with this paint. It looks great when it's intact, but it swirls at the slightest touch during washing, requiring constant polishing and waxing, and chips like there's no tomorrow. I have a feeling the tendency to chip and the tendency to swirl during microfiber washing with proper automotive soaps are correlated. By far the most finicky paint I have ever set hands on.
 
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They are small, but I am OCD and I have only had the car for 6 days haha

IMG_4167.jpg

I have on on the bottom right quadrant of the Hood as you look at it. [emoji36]

I blame it on triple digit runs on the autobahn.
 
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I finally got my paint pen not long ago. Honestly the custom aftermarket one step paint I bought matches better than the OEM 3 step pen, and is easier to work with for wiping out excess paint. I'll be using it from now on instead of the OEM and just clear coating with the OEM pen.

It is the proper 46V paint pen too.

But I tend to agree, this paint sucks ass. It chips far too easily. I'm up to a couple dozen large chips now, and a ton of smaller ones; most of which are clustered together, and not "random" like a rock chip would be. I have had the rig now for around 13k km and 7 months.

I cannot reiterate enough throughout these threads on the red paint, that my previous car before being totalled by an idiot driver had ONE rock chip, driving the same routes, plus more highway road trips on worse roads. This was at almost 24k km and 1 year into ownership. I could literally hear the rock bounce off the fender over my music in one of the quietest cabins - if not THE quietest - in the mid-size luxury market; it even left a small, very unnoticeable dent behind once I filled the chip.

I am thoroughly disappointed with this paint. It looks great when it's intact, but it swirls at the slightest touch during washing, requiring constant polishing and waxing, and chips like there's no tomorrow. I have a feeling the tendency to chip and the tendency to swirl during microfiber washing with proper automotive soaps are correlated. By far the most finicky paint I have ever set hands on.

I agree that the OEM pen is a pain to use. The base coat is fine, but the top coat almost beads up like water. I just use the base coat now. I only have 1250 miles on mine and I've already fixed 4 chips.
 
Agreed, this red is crap. More chipping on this color than on my 2014 Gray colored one. If it gets too bad down the line I might opt to the hood redone at my favorite body shop and see if they can if they can put something better on it.
 
Agreed, this red is crap. More chipping on this color than on my 2014 Gray colored one. If it gets too bad down the line I might opt to the hood redone at my favorite body shop and see if they can if they can put something better on it.

FWIW, my 2011 Subaru in Satin White Pearl was just as bad with regard to rock chips. As was my 2006 RAV4 in Barcelona Red. It's this damn water based paint. I will say that red vehicles in general tend to show swirls almost as bad as a black vehicle. But MAN are they pretty when clean.
 
I bought a brand new CX5 with Soul Crystal Red paint in September last year and within the first few weeks I noticed chips right through to the base coat on the passenger wing, now seven months later and there are numerous chips on the bonnet too where the top layer of paint has completely chipped off. I counted 46 in total. We are not the only ones with this problem, take a look at these forum posts.
https://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/mazda-cx-5-54/soul-red-crystal-metallic-38656/
 
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