Randy 71

Vetters,
I have been away for awhile. I am back with a big problem. Need your advice quick, before I go postal.

Took my car to get 3 individual insurance claims repaired at one of the State Farms prefered locations. Very minor body work, but in 3 different areas of the car. The owner assured me that he could do the body work and could match/blend the paint. He has painted over 300 vettes, 30 years experience etc.......

Long story short. Body work was completed looked good to me. Then I was told if they blend the paint to match the rest of the car I would still be able to tell, because the repaired portion of the car would look so much better than the rest.

I agreed to kick in the extra bucks to paint the entire car. I needed to only be patient. Well, after 6 weeks and supposedly them giving me a great deal with doing the entire car. I got a call from the Owner he said the car looked beautiful when it car out of the paint booth. But now 24 hrs later he is dissapointed on how it came out. Car has SPIDER WEBS, SMALL DIMPLES, FISH EYES ETC..... You get the picture. Flaws all over. Owner tells me that it did this because the paint (GM Code 12- ONE Stage Urathan) had a reaction with the paint that was left on the car.

Specifics. The paint that was on the car was 15 years old but looked great. They sanded the entire car. Body was completely smooth. They used 180 sand paper then 300. Only primed the areas they repaired and roughed up the rest. But quess waht? I don't buy the reaction deal. Because the areas they repaired and primed had the same flaws on it too???.

Owner is very dissappointed to. He is working to resolve the poor paint job. This is his fix to the problem. Gel coat the imperfections in the paint and re-shoot the entire car. He says the first coat may act as a sealer and the second coat may be just fine. However, the painter that shot the car tells me the only way to get a good paint job is to strip and prime the entire car???

Need advice quick on the his potential fix to the poor first coat of paint.

Thanks,Randy




[Modified by Randy 71, 9:09 PM 3/17/2002]

73Ken73

The best solution would be to strip and paint the car but you are probably at the mercy of the autobody. Unless you want to take him to court , you are going to have to go along with his idea.

VettePower

He is feeding you a line of s**t!! The paint is F****d!! It needs to be stripped all the way, sealed and primered, and then painted, preferably by someone else. See a lawyer, or take him to small claims court. Do not let him continue!! There is no such thing as the reaction he is saying. The problem is he did not properly prepare the car for painting! :bs :mad

VetteNut72

I am not a painter but I think that a grease and silicone remover should have been applied before painting. Also a sealer applied before primer will seperate all previous finishes/coatings from the new paint job.

Chris69

I'd get on the horn to State Farm to let them know that the job is absolutely unsatisfactory, and you demand a meeting with the agent and the shop owner to resolve this to your satisfaction. And you need to go "postal". It's the only thing some of these guys understand! Their 'technical' problems are not your concern. Your concern is that the job should match the appearance of the car prior to the wreck. Them telling you that they couldn't match up the paint without doing the entire car (probably after the fact) is the first warning sign that should take you back to the adjuster to resolve that little issue. Paying the guy extra cash to get the job done 'right' and ending up with crap must make you want to :U

You say the owner is very dissapointed in the job... It'll be interesting to see what real effort he makes in getting this right. Keep us posted!!

DCLINE

Real Sorry Randy 71. That's enough to make a guy puke!! I've had two cars painted in my life and believe me, it's worth taking it down to glass or metal.

I would never have a car shot over any existing paint, unless it was a quick fix to sell it.

Dan

Dan

R. Bruno

I am no expert either, but think logically. If this car were steel would this have happened? If he is a preferred collision shop he must paint whole cars all the time some with old paint (whatever he called it). In the case of your car, he is "disappointed" because something he did not expect happened, which says to me that he was painting a surface that he was unfamiliar with, i.e. fiberglass. This logically leads me to think that he does not know how to prep the car which concerns me because even if the paint looks good after he does the additional work when it leaves the shop, what will it look like in a a year or 2?
Sorry to hear about your troubles.
:mad

Anar76

I'm not a painter either, but it soulds like he forgot to clean it ... :confused:
I'm sure if you tell him you don't want that offer and you'de like it done right, and express you're concerns without letting him talk you out of you're concerns then he will repaint it properly, If I were you, I'd go down and take a look at it stripped too, just to make sure he doesn't try to pull anything behind your back.

Pete79L82

Without seeing pictures of the car it is hard to say for sure but from what you describe it sound like contaminates (wax,grease.ect) on the old paint not the paint itself. I am of the school of thinking that believes it is not necessary to strip old paint if it is in good shape. It sounds as though the car was not thoroughly washed with wax and grease remover before they began sanding. This can embed the wax into the paint and imperfections. Then as the new paint dries it will push away from these imperfections, showing up as spidercracks and fisheyes.

I would give the car a couple of days to dry completely, resand the entire car, give it a full coat of primer/filler/sealer similar to Dupont Uro-prime, block sand that, and give it a coat of color sealer before appling the topcoat.

Randy 71

Vetters,
Some very good info. Keep it coming. Do the corvette painter out there agree that there is no way that GEL coating the imperfection and re-painting the car will work?


Randy

73-454

A painter told me a very long time ago " If you know what you are doing you can paint any-thing if you ( wash, prep, seal, prime, paint) it should not react. The bum that painted your vette gave you a $400 respray and he hope it would hold-up for at least 2 months and that way he could blame you. My experince has been if it is an insurance claim always take the car to their preferred shops that way the insurance company is fully responsible and they will deal with the shop on your behalf. They have a lot more clout then you or I. and one other thing when it's an insurance claim never get extra work done eventhough it may make sense at the time. I trully believe you are the the shops mercy at this point. I hope the rest of us can learn from this. Thank-you for sharing your bad experince with us.

ddecart

I'm not a painter or body person, but that suggestion sounds REALLY f'd up!!

Stick to the argument that if it was a reaction, then the paint where he repaired/primed would have been FINE! Don't let him stray from that.

I like the suggestion to immediately call your insurance agent and not let him proceed at all until it's resolved to YOUR satisfaction. Sounds to me like he wants to take the most pain free way out of it and you're going to pay the price because of it.

Good luck!
Dave

dually4wd

Actually, new paint CAN "react" with old paint, the most common problem being lifting or mapping. 300 grit is way too coarse to be painting over; it should have been finish sanded with 800. The biggest problem with his solution will be solvent trapping and film thickness. It might look good for a month or so, but wait until it starts to shrink. I would have to see the car to tell what the problem is, but my bet is it will need to be stripped - down past the layer causing the problems. Good luck with it.

rainman69

Read this:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/techti...=111&TopicID=3

That way you have some ammo to use against him. Hope you get the issue resolved. :cheers:

sb69coupe

[QUOTE]Vetters,
Some very good info. Keep it coming. Do the corvette painter out there agree that there is no way that GEL coating the imperfection and re-painting the car will work?/QUOTE]

For Gods sake, don't let him shoot gelcoat over this bad paint. You'll end up with way too much film thickness on the body. The body lines will look like crap and there's no telling what the final product will look like. As mentioned earlier, if the paint is bad over the repair areas, he can't blame it on the reaction with the old paint. Make him strip it, seal it, prime it, then shoot it. Don't accept any band-aid bubba-ology on this. No C3 was ever gelcoated from the factory, so don't let him pawn off substandard methods on your car.

Shannon

BADCAIMAN

1st give them the chance to make good on there mistake...Do not let them scuff and reshoot..It might look good for a while but it will dye back...The car should be stripped primed and then painted...If they don't want to make good on there mistake..Don't forget it was there error...They should have known better than paint over laquer...But some like to gamble...
If they don't want to fix there error check and see what the insurance company paid for...Most pay to blend ajoining panels...Make sure you received what the insurance company paid for every nut and bolt...Also check into any supplements the shop may have requested...If they didn't give you something the insurance company paid for...ouch.. I would notify the insurance company and sit back...and watch what happens :boxing :boxing :boxing :boxing ..Good luck

Madmikeee

The paint should NOT have reacted whther it was Laquer or not. if the surface are was properly Cleaned, sanded, and prepped it should have worked fine. it is a VERY RARE occurance for one paint to react to another and it sounds to me like whoever shot the color did not check his lines and filters, also some idiot in the shop was probably spraying some Armor All and no matter how good the filter system in the shop those silicone molecules will get through and cause EXACTLY what you are describing. Tell the guy you want the car stripped down to gelcoat and then prepped and painted. If he will not do that get a lawyer and find the most expensive shop you can have them do the work and make the guy pay for it. Report him to the better business bureau as well as the insurance company.


Gee think I have seen this happen before? :D

:cheers:

Jman

He's full of Shiit. It's a VETTE for crying out loud. Don't accept his piddly excuses, go down there and bust his ***** for messing up your car. Someone with 30 years experience should know how to please a customer.

shamby

I had the same thing happen to my 77. It was covered with dimples. I had the actuall paint company to come out and look at my car and they stated that it could have been oil in the paint lines (not fully flushed out) or a bad prep job (oil on the body of the car).

Paul 75 L82

IMHO-- You can fix anything with PPG DP50. It is a expoy base sealer that's tought as nails. If the paint is not lifting you can prepare the surface, fix the imperfexions with Evercoat Corvette Panel Advisive, sand, seal with the DP50 and then paint. It will NEVER be as good as stripping the body back to glass, but it will work. There is no way he can gel coat these places, that just tells you he doesn't have the Corvette background that you thought. These imperfections were caused by wax, dust on the car or water in his air system. I don't really think that he's the guy to fix your problem. If you do use him go to Corvette FAQ and copy off the paper by Lars and follow it and you can save your paint job.