I washed the car yesterday afternoon, and as I was drying it, I noticed that on both rear doors, on that sorta verticle rectangle plastic piece that sticks out a bit off of the door (I don't know exactly what to call it) and sort of rises up from the swell of the wheel well, there are an awful lot of those "spiderweb" scratches all over them. These are not deep scores or anything, but those very very fine lines as if someone took a dry sponge or rough material or something to the piece and rubbed horizontally on them. I guess this is from the fact that those pieces sort of stick out slightly from the body, and are the leading edge of hitting the wind back there and dust and particles are being deflected by those pieces, but still, that sort of bugs me. You have to be looking for them to see them, but I wonder how bad the wear will get a year from now, two years from now.

Do any of you notice more wear there on your HHR, or are the California travel winds just strange out here?

 

Can you take a picture and post? It kinda sounds like the famous guard that is used to protect the paint from road debris. This was installed on HHR's that do not have the running boards. If so, do a search here as there a numerous threads on this subject.

 

Try cleaning them with a product called Plexus....I comes in a spray can and can be found in most motorcycle shops.......it's great for cleaning plastic and will probably remove those scratches.......I use it on my snowmobiles and ATV'S...makes them look like new....motorhead

 

make the spiders wear soft socks the next time they want to walk on your car Think that is another thing that will show up at some time or another just like taxes and death. Like old motorhead said, there maybe some products on the market that may help. Hope you get them out.

 

The marks I'm seeing wouldn't show up in a photograph, I don't think. It's one of those things where it's visible in certain light and at a certain angle, but just sitting there by itself you won't notice them, unless you're looking closely, such as I was when I was drying the car.

At this point they're no big deal, but when you do look at them closely, it's gotta be from wind and particles hitting that part of the car when it's in motion. There's dozens or hundreds of very very fine horizontal scratches there on both sides of the car, parallel to each other, but the paint is fine/uniform elsewhere. As I wrote above, too, my concern isn't so much for right now, as I can probably erase them or minimize them with Scratch Doctor and/or waxing, but I'm a bit worried about long term wear there.

Someone above mentioned it sounds like I'm talking about a piece that HHRs without running boards have, as if not all HHRs have this piece. I bought my car without the boards, but do have them on now. The piece I'm talking about is above the board...it's a vertical rectangle, more or less, that is raised up from the hump of the wheel well. It's on the rear door itself, I'd say at about, say, knee level when you stand next to the car. Do not all HHRs have this piece? If anything, it does seem like a piece put on there to take the brunt of the wind and flying particles, so as to protect the metal body there, but since it's permanently attached to the door, you're still getting particle damage, so what's the difference, really?

Anyway, getting those socks on the spiders has been a problem, too. They simply refuse to cooperate, and I always run out of socks when I do finally get some of them to go along. Mainly they just make webs in the wheel wells and from the driveway to the running boards, and writing things like "SOME PIG" in them.

Thanks for the tip about the products above, as well. I have some stuff at home already, but I will look into what was suggested above, too.

 

that was a protective piece that was an add-on to HHR's that did not originally come with the running boards...it works kind of like a shin guard an athlete would wear, to pretect the rear wheel arch from debris since the wheel arch is flared from the body.

Not all HRR's came with them, so it is a add-on...and now you know why. They are designed to take the brunt of the punishment that drving a flared-fender car can suffer from.

the front tires will often toss debris rearward, and with no running boards, the debris can strike the back wheel arch flares, thus causing damage.

those are "guards" and they are protecting your fenders...and obviously working!

they are plastic, and often times plastic is more flexible than steel, so the plastic may be flexing from small impacts, causing the paint to crack.

check with a body shop to see if they can be removed, or re-painted.
I have running boards, so I dont have a car I can inspect for you.

 

Funny thing is, though, I have running boards and splash guards, both... The scratching is nothing much at the moment, but months and years from now...hmm...

 

Dam! You stole my line.....

I also had scratches as well as "sandblasting" on my guards. Per the TSB that was out, the dealer repaired the paint, then gave me a superb deal on boards. Between the boards and flaps, no problems since.

 

so...is it possible that the impacts happened before you got the boards, and with sun/heat/age/elements, the impacts have begun to allow paint cracking?

I hate to say you'll have to wait and see what happens down the road...but that's what I'd do.

Impact marks can crack the paint...and over time as the material expands/contracts/receives more impacts, the cracks can become more visible.

 

Perhaps I'm not using the right term when I say "spider" scratches. I don't mean that sort of mosaic pattern you get when paint cracks, which looks like a spider web. I mean exceptionally fine scratches that are about as thin as a single spider silk. These are all horizontal and basically parallel to each other. They must be from particles in the air rushing by hitting that area and scraping along its surface for a split second before being whisked away. Odd thing, though, is the nose of the car looks comparatively better.

I got boards and guards about a month after getting the car; the car itself is only seven months old.