Paint chips as insurance claim?

I have a 2007 Suzuki SX4 that has experienced severe chipping of the paint on the hood, fenders and even the A pillar. The bumper, strangely enough (or not, if you know about different paint mixes for urethane vs steel components) is nearly free of blemishes.

Question is, has anyone had any luck having this covered under their comprehensive insurance coverage? It's obviously damage caused by flying debris, rather than sun/salt/water or anything like that. Make sense to at least ask for coverage?

How many miles?

Under 12K you might want to call your Suzuki accout rep.

Yeah, this sounds like something to take up with Suzuki, not your insurer.

Don't use insurance for little crap - you pay more in the end. Insurance is for catastrophic use. Using it for maintenance just makes it more expensive.

Ditto...if it's an '07 I'm guessing the mileage is pretty low. With low mileage you shouldn't have much rock chipping unless you make a habit of tailgating (er...drafting) a lot.

Bryce

Suzuki already said no :-(

The dealership (independent of Suzuki) offered to pay my deductible if insurance covered it.

36k miles

That's not dirt:

I suppose that's what I get for having to drive my car rather than leave it with them for a week in the middle of winter :(

I'm sorry, but unless you were pelted with debris from a dump truck load and the damage is all similar (age...we can tell) it's going to be normal wear and tear.

I like you, but I'd deny it.

Daaaaaaymn, that's nuts!

I'd start asking around, seeing if you're alone in this problem. If not... time to raise hell.

If you can find evidence of weak paint, I'd hit Suzuki again. I know GM had to repaint several thousand late-80's blue cars for peeling paint, and I beleive Subaru has footed the bill for some repaints of recent cars due to notoriously weak paint.

Regardless, it ain't insurance.

Sorry, damage to paint from flying debris is not a warrantable condition. Delamination due to no outside cause is a warrantable condition. What I see in those pics is flying debris damage.

If the dealership is offering to help with the deductible, that's a pretty good deal. But I betcha they want to do the work in their shop, right? ddavidv knows what I am talking about.

The GM (and also Mazda and a few others) paint thing was due to premature chalking and delamination. It specifically excluded impact damage of any type.

the same thing was going on with uor 02 mazda with the chips. it pretty much we drove on crappy roads. If you really like this car repaint it and get a front-end cover(bra). You can get a clear one.

F the bra. Wrap that bitch in carbon fiber yo!

John Brown wrote: F the bra. Wrap that bitch in carbon fiber yo!

The racecar gets the carbon first

Once upon a time, I'm embarassed to admit, I owned a Renault Alliance. Silver. A coworker bought one in blue and kept hammering me with his problems. Did this happen to yours, did your car do that? His paint peeled off in sheets! Back to the Stealership, yeah, they know about it but won't volunteer to fix it. If you bring it in we'll do something. They would fix it and for an extra $100 shoot the whole car.

Point is, they may already know they have a problem. This only happend to the darker colors.

Dan

DILYSI Dave wrote: Yeah, this sounds like something to take up with Suzuki, not your insurer. Don't use insurance for little crap - you pay more in the end. Insurance is for catastrophic use. Using it for maintenance just makes it more expensive.

+1 Think long and hard before involving your insurance company in anything. A good rule of thumb is to not involve them if it's something you can afford.

I've had my insurance fix stupid stuff before and my rates didn't go up.
It will depend largely on your insurance company and your deductible.

it looks like it rusted in that pic. I'll bet with a call to suzuki corporate you can get it fixed. The rust should be covered by warranty anyhow.