FastDawg

I have noticed rock chips on the front end of my F Sport the last two times I washed it in the last couple of weeks. The first wash there were two right under the lower section of the grill and then last week three to the right of the grill. I don't have this issue on our other two vehicles. I don't recall my wife's 2012 GX460 having this issue. Am I just unlucky or does anyone else have this problem?

ndunn

Absolutely zero chips in 1100 miles because I set the following distance indicator to maximum. The only time I tailgated was on the way home from purchase and a pickup truck driver had to look through his back window to see if he had enough clearance to swerve in front of my new car. For 1.3 seconds I was within rock chip territory.

FastDawg

You are making an assumption that I tailgate when actually the opposite is true. I worked in the transportation industry my entire career and my company has the best safety record. I taught people the correct following distance.

ndunn

If those rocks hadn't been kicked up by another vehicle from where do you suppose they came?

Were you an HR manager in that transportation industry also?

FastDawg

Don't think that I don't recognize your screen name. You like to argue and that's not my intent on the thread that I posted.

TechNut

There are a lot of different ways to get rock chips. Tailgating is only one. They also get tossed up by traffic in the opposite direction. I had one caused by a dump truck throwing out junk on a freeway entrance and bouncing down the tarmac until it hit me. If you live in areas that “chip seal” the roads, like Idaho, chips are inevitable. I was once following an idiot at a good distance, and his trailer with an open load of gravel hit a bump and sprayed all over the highway. I couldn’t get stopped soon enough without causing an accident. Chips happen and they always make me sad. I have found the paint protection film helps a great deal, but there is no silver bullet. In answer to the original question, I don’t find this car to be any better or worse than past vehicles.

ndunn

Not at all, sir. You have a nice day.

I don't have any chips yet so I'm interested to see if this is going to be an issue. So far I'm pleasantly surprised.

ndunn

This is a good example of where you might be following too closely for the conditions but not actually tailgating. If I had seen that trailer if front of me I'd have dropped way back. I'm always watching for debris including dump trucks and especially trailers with things that can bounce off always ready to switch lanes or dodge upcoming threats.

NTH

This is a question posted on every car forum. Reality is all cars are subjected to rocks and stones from vehicles in front whether you tailgate or not. At 30 mph, an ejected stone can travel quite some distance, then the car behind smacks into it at 30 mph. The severity worsens at higher speeds obviously.

LeX2K

You have two choices: keep fixing the rock ships and become an expert at it, or prevent them from happening via PPF.

ESh

I always keep the distance, and still see new chips every time I watch the car. The clearcoat is very soft on these cars because of self-healing thing.

FastDawg

Thanks. I thought it was something with the paint. These cars sit low to the road compared to my wife’s 2012 GX460 and we never had this issue in eight years of ownership.

ATL350

I try to avoid tailgating as well, but even setting your distance to max is not always a solution. On crowded freeways in many metro areas, like here in Atlanta where I live, at most hours of the day there’s a ton of traffic - that maximum distance you set will simply be seen as an opening by other cars and they will slip right in to fill the gap. If traffic is even moderately heavy you almost have to decrease from the maximum distance setting in order to avoid constantly having cars cutting in to what they see as clear space. Like a lot of things, it’s a balancing act.

The only rock damage I’ve had so far with my ’22 ES was last year when a rock was thrown up by a large truck from the opposite direction on a busy freeway. I suddenly saw about a dozen golf ball size rocks flying over the median divider, bouncing all over the place. There was simply nothing I could do and no where to go on a roadway filled with cars. One of them nailed my hood. A similar thing happened about 20 years ago in Arizona in another ES I had when a large rock like that hit the windshield. It sounded like a gunshot hitting the glass. Needless to say that windshield was totaled.

TechNut

I was back considerably farther than typical, plus he was in the adjacent lane. There is just no way to completely avoid stupid. It happens everywhere…

ndunn

An example of bad things happen no matter what. My suggestion is to reduce the amount of chips but you should realize it will not eliminate the once in a lifetime event.