Craters in paint

[Chopper]

So I got my car painted about three months ago, and gradually the car is having areas of pitting and cratering.

I called and he was kinda back tracking that it was the previous paints fault, but from what I have read it's more incorrect stay distance and cheap paint.

It's a acrylic and clear I believe.

I'm going to take it back to the guy and he said he would check it out.

Anything I should know to educate myself on it a little better?

Cheers

Rich

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[turtle5353]

Im no expert by any means and someone will be along with an answer for you, but to me it sounds like he used a reducer that flashed off to quick?? Im sure Q or Greg will be able to answer this for you, but either way something went wrong!! I wouldn't be happy!

 

[72HCODE]

craters are air bubbles that get trapped, the gun is too close or the gun was moved too slowly over an area.

could also be low air pressure in the gun.

chipping. lack of adhesion to the substrat, paint might of needed flex added.

 

[Chopper]

Yeah looks more like the air bubbles that got trapped. I'll try get a pic of it.

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[Austin Vert]

So I got my car painted about three months ago, and gradually the car is having areas of pitting and cratering.

I called and he was kinda back tracking that it was the previous paints fault, but from what I have read it's more incorrect stay(spray) distance and cheap paint.

It's a acrylic and clear I believe.

I'm going to take it back to the guy and he said he would check it out.

Anything I should know to educate myself on it a little better?

Cheers,

Rich

Hi Rich,

Glad to help any way i can here, BUT, first i need to identify what is going on here with the paint finish. Your best photos of the problem areas will be of great help to me.

You said the car was shot in Acrylic. Do you mean Acrylic Lacquer or another type of paint? Also, technically, there are many things that can go wrong or cause ongoing probs with the finish. I won't jump the gun and try to diagnose your problems until i see the pics. As well, try your best to describe as accurately as you can, what the defects look like, that helps as well.

I look at it this way. If your body shop painted the car, and it was blemish free when you took delivery of it, and these paint problems have emerged out of the blue later on, then you have every right to return the car back to the shop and discuss getting them rectified at their expense. I don't know if the shop gave you any written warranty on the job as such, but be warned that a lot of shop owners will try their best to worm their way out of fixing the problems at their expense, by shifting the blame and invent other issues that in reality, have nothing to do with what caused your paint problems.

A good honest body shop should honor and stand by their products used, and workmanship carried out of the job.Lastly, did this job involve a strip and repaint, or just painting over previous paint already there? Any more details or background will be of great help.

Many thanks,

Greg.

 

[Chopper]

The guy did a great job removing all the dents, my car got stuck in a nasty hail storm and got over 250 dents. So all the dents were pulled and car stripped, primed and blocked three times I believe. I think what happened was he did all the body work then rushed the last 10% painting.

There's a few more spots that won't show up.

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This is the roof at its worst point, but the driver side fender and roof look like this

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[73pony]

Looks like fish eyes to me. Caused by not properly cleaning the surface prior to painting or the booth was not clean. Usually caused by a spot of oil or other petroleum based substance on the surface when they pray the paint on. The paint does not stick to that spot and causes this. These look pretty bad. I can tell you 100% that this is the responsibility of the body shop if they are the ones responsible for the prep work as well as the paint.


Also, a lot of guys will tell you they can do some wet sanding and buffing to get rid of them. Truth of the matter is it will reduce their appearance but they will still be there (especially some of those in the pics are really bad). I assume from what you described this was not a cheap paint job and I would demand that it be fixed right. Strip and repaint (with proper prep work done of course). Just my opinion. I had a car painted that had this issues on the trunk lid, showed up about two weeks after I got it home. The shop ended up stripping the trunk lid and surrounding areas all they way out to the fender trim and down to the bumper and repainting. When I brought it in he knew exactly what happened and apologized and said he would make it right. Best of luck.

 

[turtle5353]

That's f*cked! They should definitely fix that for nothing. Could be silicon left over on it also , I had a bad problem with fish eyes and greg helped me through that one! It definitely got contaminated by something.

 

[Qcode351mach]

Hard to tell whats really going from your pics But you said it was fine when you picked up and these developed 3 months later ? If so it's not fish eyes..Fish eyes happen during the painting process itself. It depends what you paid for..In my shop the only way I guarantee paint work is when we strip to bare metal. Costs more than just a sand and paint over existing paintwork. Really need to know the exact process and materials used in order to determine your problem..and the correct fix..My gut tells me they just repaired the hail dents on top of the existing paint sanded then sprayed. You can do that but the old finish needs to be isolated or sealed BEFORE the new finish. In addition the old finish needs to be in pretty good shape to do that process. It looks like problem spots from the old finish coming through to the new finish now that it's settling shrinking ESPECIALLY if the NEW paint job PRIMER COATS weren't baked or forced dried. At the bare minimum you should have been informed that there is no guarantee painting repairing on the existing finish UNLESS you strip to bare metal YOU then could have been given the option to have the car stripped at extra cost IF in fact the car was stripped to bare metal & they used a chemical stripper that could also be traces of the stripper still left in spots due to poor prep removal. it could also be the use of cheap or inferior products. I'm curious how much did you pay for the job ? Just to give you an example My cost to buy top notch products to strip & paint one of our cars runs in the 2500.00 to 3000.00 range thats before you ever lift a finger to do any work. I just bought a gallon of evercoat rage extreme body filler the other day it's up to 72.00 my cost

 

[Chopper]

The car was insured and it was 10.5k in total. Most of this I believe was dent removal hours. New hood, new deck lid. They did the whole job. Was chemically stripped. We had talked about sand blasting but he decided against it. The bubbles first showed up probably about a month after and have progressively got worse.

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https://vimeo.com/145284588

Here's it in the process

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[Qcode351mach]

The vid isn't showing but if that picture is in process I see primer over the old finish..I think you may have chemical stripper rearing it's ugly head where it wan't fully removed then neutralized properly. But again hard to tell from the pictures..To be frank 10.5k doesn't cover a proper strip -repaint-bodywork-materials--10.5k is on the light side given you have 3k in materials. More like 14k just for the strip repaint then body work on top of that..They took shortcuts somewhere along the line in order to do the work for that number. Not only that since it was a insurance job they had the insurance look at the car at their shop ? Agreed to do the work for the amount the insurance co wrote WHICH IS ALWAYS LESS THAT WHAT THE JOB REALLY IS..Did the insurance co SEND you to the shop? is it one of their direct repair shops ? If so contact the insurance co let them handle it since they SENT you THERE will guarantee the work (If they did send you there it's one of their drp shops)

I can see the vid now the big question is this was the car stripped or not ? from the vid & the picture it appears not to be stripped. Best bet is you need to sand down one of the craters with maybe 600 wet, see what you get...you will know in a few seconds if it was in fact stripped & what process they used

 

[mustang7173]

Chopper

I sent your information to my friend who just painted my mustang over the weekend. His questions are based on the picture you posted. Please note, He was hesitant to make an opinion since he could not actually look at the paint job himself. He did asked if you have applied any type of auto wax to the paint? He states, it looks like a solvent issue. It is possible that the problem may be related solvent entrapment.

Please let us know what the assessment turns out to be.

mustang7173

 

[Chopper]

So took it in he thinks it's old paint causing the issue. It was not stripped all the way just back to the original. The one thing that makes me think it was badly cleaned in that area on the roof is its almost in a triangle shape right at the front of the roof, almost if you did a circular swipe from each side of the car the hardest spot to reach.

Worst part of today was the shop is about 40 mins from my house. The car was cruising great at 70mph then started feeling like fuel not continually flowing, then two loud bangs down low and I lost drive. I pulled off on the shoulder and took a look underneath. There was no visible damage had about 15milesleft in the trip. Started the car back up and it lasted for about another 2 miles and lost drive no bangs this time. Gave it a minute and tried to go again got all the way to the shop thank goodness. Hoping my fmx has not died on me. But I'm pretty sure all things are pointing to that.

Will hopefully get some news this week.

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The vid isn't showing but if that picture is in process I see primer over the old finish..I think you may have chemical stripper rearing it's ugly head where it wan't fully removed then neutralized properly. But again hard to tell from the pictures..To be frank 10.5k doesn't cover a proper strip -repaint-bodywork-materials--10.5k is on the light side given you have 3k in materials. More like 14k just for the strip repaint then body work on top of that..They took shortcuts somewhere along the line in order to do the work for that number. Not only that since it was a insurance job they had the insurance look at the car at their shop ? Agreed to do the work for the amount the insurance co wrote WHICH IS ALWAYS LESS THAT WHAT THE JOB REALLY IS..Did the insurance co SEND you to the shop? is it one of their direct repair shops ? If so contact the insurance co let them handle it since they SENT you THERE will guarantee the work (If they did send you there it's one of their drp shops)

I can see the vid now the big question is this was the car stripped or not ? from the vid & the picture it appears not to be stripped. Best bet is you need to sand down one of the craters with maybe 600 wet, see what you get...you will know in a few seconds if it was in fact stripped & what process they used

Insurance came sent a kid about twenty years old quoted 6k he had no clue was a modern car adjuster, had to fight tooth and nail to get the 10.5k. The first body shop I took it to basically said it was a complete write off "they may as well just write you a check"

The rest of the car is very well done, some little things that a feel I traded old blemishes for different ones. Like the outside of the mirrors have some crocodile looking texture and the front bumper is cracking in two spots near the grill. Looks like it did not adhere in those spots, about penny size.

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[Austin Vert]

Hi Rich,

OK, it's hard to tell what's going on there with the pics you sent in sorry, but i would only be guessing. Would have to see the blemishes in real life.You didn't say what type of paint was used or the brand. That plays a part in the equation.

Scott's input covers the story well. From what you say, this respray has not been carried out properly in respect to not stripping all the paint off and going back down to bare metal. Refinishing over old paint can bring on paint probs for sure. You say that chemical stripper was used, but all the old paint was not removed. That spells big trouble for starters. You don't do that. You have to go back to the bare metal to do the job properly. Corners have obviously been cut with this job, and you are already paying the price for that as a customer. Sadly, i suspect that other paint problems will eventually emerge down the track with this paint job. I don't think your body shop is up to standard either.

Because this is an insurance job, the insurance company and the body shop should honor and refinish any paint problem areas that have occurred at their expense. Will they do a proper job of fixing them, i don't know. When the original quoting was done for this job, i would like to know if stripping down to bare metal was part of the initial quote or not. If it was, then you have a case for redoing the whole job over again.

Looks like you're dealing with a dud Insurance Company as well, and getting ripped off with the deal. I think the best you can hope for, is make sure the rectification work is done properly at their expense. How the paint job will look in one year's time from now, is an unknown quantity i feel. It would pay to have a talk with your Insurance Company about this matter and see what they have to say.

Sorry that this has happened to you Rich.

Keep us posted with how you end up getting on.

Greg.

 

[piper62j]

Looks to me like where the hail dents were, the filler used was not properly sealed prior to the primer coat. No adhesion to the filler and the paint has lifted. Only way to fix it is sand down to bare metal and start again..