A friend of mine has just bought her first MX5 , on giving it its first bath she has found that there is a sort of rippled texture arround the bottom of the car , looks like a bad respray. I know I have the same sort of texture on the bottom half of my passenger door , and also thought this may have been a bad respray. Does anybody else have this "texture", is it common? Please note it can only be seen close up about 8" to 10" away from the car. (3/00)

This is normal, all '5's have it, infact someone is trying to et this effect redone after a prang (which is not easy) It is a stone chip protection stuff I think. (3/00)

Don't worry, they all have it, I think its something like stone chip resistant. (3/00)

Most of the bottom half of my UK 91 5 is like this front wings/doors etc. I think it is deliberately painted thicker so it resists stone chips etc. (3/00)

Just had my nearside front wing resprayed after a truck scraped it and I asked the chap at the bodyshop what this "bubble" finish was. (Actually I was diplomatically asking whether they knew how to do it !!) and he said that it was stone chip protection. When I got the car back, the repair was perfect and I asked if it had been difficult to do. The guy said no.....it comes in a can !! (3/00)

I have a '99 Mk II which sadly needed the offside repaired after I collided with a bollard just before Christmas. The damage was minor and the repairers have done a brilliant job as far as the colour match is concerned but they are having a huge problem in matching the painted textured underseal to the original. So far I've returned the car three times and they still can't get the texture right. I don't think I'm being too fussy, I just feel that as the car is only 4 months old, I expect the repair to be perfect and to match the nearside - not to much to ask from professionals, surely!? Has anyone else had the side of their car repaired and had trouble matching the texture of the underseal? (3/00)

Presume we are talking stone chip below the crease line in the bodywork .. very difficult .. but if you pester them it should be possible .. needs experimentation with air pressure and adding thinners to the mix .. but that requires thinking .. and not sure they want to do that! (3/00)

I recently had a similar repair job done (though on a Met.Blue '95 MkI). It looks absolutely fine. Only when I got this email did I bother to compare the 2 sides - there is a V.slight difference in texture, but the colour matches perfectly, and you would never notice if you didn't know (e.g. if I was looking at it as a prospective purchaser). I have sent cars back to insurance-repairers before for shoddy work, so I am quite picky in these things (rather like yourself, by the sound of it!). (3/00)