Question about paint on an Audi
 

I have a random question. My girlfriend drives a 2008 A3 and it has some very odd issues with the paint. It's black and there was a bunch of spots I noticed on the passenger front fender. I looked at them up close and noticed not only is the paint gone completely, it's down to the metal! It looks like acid or something extremely fatal to paint was splattered on the car. The weird thing though is that there's no running or dripping of the spots, it's just a bunch of isolated dots.

Any ideas what this could be? Is there a common quality issue with the paint of the A3? She paid for a "paint wear warranty" which the dealer said this issue is not covered (am I surprised?). Apparently they only cover things like parking lot scratches and tree sap, etc, and they claim they have no idea what could have caused these blemishes. The only thing it looks like to me is something like battery acid, but I have no idea how this could be!

That looks like rock damage.

It does look somewhat like if a bunch of pebbles hit the car really hard, but the puzzling part is that the front of the car doesn't have any damage like this at all. In fact the other side or anywhere else on the car doesn't have any damage. Its only on the passenger side door and fender. Could it have been parked and a really big gust of wind slammed it with rocks and dust??

Or maybe a street cleaner went by it and shot rocks out of the side?

Another thought, was she parked somewhere where the ground was rocky or sand? I wonder if someone peeled out and shot gravel back at the car?

Could have been a lawn mower as well. Sucks when you have a freaking paint warranty and this isn't covered. Are there dings/dents in the metal, or are the marks flush?

I don't know now. The more I look at it, the more it looks chemical/liquid as some of the dots are so round.

Looks like white paint or rocks. I have always found the paint on VW products (VW, Audi, Porsche etc) to be flawless

wait ... what? You mean with the exception of orange peel I'm assuming.

I'm thinking there was some chemical or solvent on the road that she ran over.

road line paint?

Well the thing that's made it hard for me to understand is that the paint is not chipped or peeled or cracked. It's literally completely gone and it's down to the bare metal. It's almost as if it was completely removed in perfect dots with no damage around each area. Normally I would think there would also be pitting and dents if it was some sort of object thrust against the car (like flying rocks or debris). I think the chemical reasoning is still the closest to explain it. Perhaps there was something on the road and when she ran it over the tires shot it out at the body of the car which explains why it's only located around the wheel. The car has never been parked on the street - it's garaged at home and in a garage at work. Weird for sure!

I actually have something similar, only smaller on me E90...

me aswell i have it on the hood of my x5! its like orange spots that is rust and when i saw this i had no idea how it got there or what happened. this is starting to be like those crop circles on our cars...