How do you fix a chip out of a car's side?

Factual Questions
1

It doesn’t have to look great. This is a 2000 Cavalier. We love the car, it runs great, but this baby does not have to look like new.

My wife was at the store and while shopping, a cart hit the car and took a chunk/chip out of the side of it.

Here is a picture.

Anyway, she has the chip in the car and it looks OK if you hold it up.

Is there some kind of glue you can use to put it back on?

Also, there are faint cracks(in the paint mainly) around the chip and I’m wondering if I should get some primer and car paint and paint the area again.

What should I do? My main concern is that it look decent and that the car does not rust away into oblivion. It currently has zero rust, by the way.

Thanks!

2

This is best and the only real fix. You can also put some touch up paint in the chipped area to keep the main part from rusting and hide the chip somewhat, but with the crack it will still rust a little. That little bit of rust isn’t going to hurt anything though, at least not in the lifespan of a car that’s already 12 years old.

3

Is there any kind of adhesive that will hold the chip onto the metal?

4

Go to an auto paint store, and have them make a couple of aerosol cans in the car’s color. They use the color code to make the exact color (less fading). Sand (using 220 then 400) the area and primer, then sand the primer and paint. If you follow the “less is better” approach to painting, (3 coats better than 1 heavy one) you’ll probably be okay. It’ll certainly look better than the missing chip does.

5

Looks to me there’s been some bodywork there. If you have chipped pieces, and there not too small, I’d try gluing them back on. Any good adhesive will work. It’s certainly worth a try. Anything short of repinting the entire area withh be quite apparent.

6

Looks like the fender was damaged before and repaired using bondo. The hit knocked some of the bondo off.
The best repair would be a new fender and paint.
The second best would be to remove the remaining bondo that is cracked and rebondo the area and paint.
The third best is to paint over the area.

7

OK. Been body work? I don’t know if you mean before, but there hasn’t.

Nope. Nothing ever.

8

If you say so I believe you, but the missing piece, the condition of the sub surface, the crack in the remaining paint all scream bondo from a previous repair.
I don’t think I have ever seen a modern paint that was factory applied chip like that.

9

You can’t chip out a hunk like that out of paint on metal. That chip looks suspiciously like a chip of bondo. It looks like a mild dent was repaired with Bondo and the adhesion was not perfect. When impacted, the chip came out. You could fill it with more body filler and paint it, but the project would expand in size. You might epoxy the chip back on, but the side cracks would remain. You could simply paint over the hole, but that would look crappy. Anything short of grinding it down and filling it with lead or Bondo and repainting will look crappy.

10

I have a 16 inch long keyed area to touch up. Width of a car key. There’s a little trace of rust.

Should I wet sand? Or dry sand with those two grits? I wasn’t sure if wet sanding works on metal or only paint.