Paint flaw on roof where it meets windshield

*After the long winter noticed wrinkled paint about the size of a quarter on roof *

Just happened after 40,000 miles and 4 + years on vehicle, a hatchback. Dealer states must be caused by a pebble or chip ! No evidence of such and paint otherwise perfect.
States caused by rust from chip that was not visible. Never seen such before on other cars!!! :grinning: Will this inevitably keep getting worse? Any experience out there???

Could be rust bubbles in a very mild form. Not even enough rust there for the paint to flake off {???}

totally possible

it is actually one of the points of using a good wax/sealer on paint: to have small paint chips to be sealed from further damage

did you do your 1-2 times a year wax/sealer application?
too late now on this car, but is a good idea when paint is in good state or from new

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*Sorry I was not clear. There was wax on car and the paint on the car is perfect * That is why I did not agree with dealer. Some cars do have little chips I agree. I had a black car that chipped but these never resulted in rust.

in this case it may fall under category “…it happens”

40K miles a likely out of base warranty and too late to get any help from the car maker

Yes it will get worse . Doesn’t matter about any one else experience . You have this problem and if it was me I would have a body shop repair it . This is not a warranty item .

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I agree with VOLVO_V70 about repairing this. If the metal gets rusty under the windshield seal, there’s a good chance you’ll end up with a water leak sooner or later.

Can you attach a picture?

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If the rust is right up to the windshield, then it will creep down to the window channel and eventually rust through. Then you’ll get water in your lap. How do I know? Whether you like it or not, the windshield should be removed and the rust taken care of and re-painted. I scheduled mine when I needed a windshield anyway, so they pulled the windshield, I did the paint work at home and on Monday they put the new windshield in. No more leaks. You have to stop it right away. Little stone chips up there are hard to see and can leave the metal bare.

If you don’t insist on perfection a shop could probably remove the paint in that area, and if the rust hasn’t spread into the windshield seal area already, just scrape away the rust, then apply some rust protection and new paint. It won’t match perfectly, a visible non-matching spot will almost certainly remain, but it should prevent the problem from spreading, and wouldn’t be overly expensive. If you notice this sort of thing right away before the rust starts, you can apply something even as simple as clear nail polish remover to keep it from rusting until you can fix it properly. I’ve have many little nicks on my mt bike paint from small pebbles rocks getting thrown up against the frame during a ride, but never had any rust develop b/c of that method. There’s no way to tell if this is a paint defect from the factory or not. Most likely not, a small pebble thrown up into the air by the vehicle in head probably hit the paint right there while you were driving. Your only hope of getting help from the manufacturer along those lines are (1) they’ve already published a tsb which offers an extension on the paint warranty; or (2) you convince the dealership you’ll buy another car from them if they treat you well for this problem.

Todays collision repair shops can mend this and it will be just fine.