Hey guys, this winter i had someone perform a hit and run on my car and it messed up my nose and a small portion of my hood, so about 3 months ago i was reffered to a guy by my father in law. He fixed the damaged nose and hood and painted it for about $900 (not the whole car just the damaged parts). When i first got the car back it looked really good, but as time went on the paint started to seperate and crack really badly. Well i took it back to him he started making alot of excuses and said it would be another 300 bucks to fix it again, well i obviously was pissed off so the father law ended up talking to him and now it sounds like he might re-do it for free but hes talking about me bringing him a whole new nose. But before i go back again with the car i would like some opinions on exzactly WHY the paint it doing what its doing. Its seperating and cracking horribly bad, ill try to attach some pictures, thanxs for any help, im only a student and 900 dollars is alot to me so i expected it to be done once and right. Thanxs Mike

How long did it take to show up after repairs were completed ? & how cold was it when he did the repairs ? looks like he tryed to do what we call bury his sand scratches with primer . Never a good idea . see email. Joe

quote Originally posted by Loops87GT: Hey guys, this winter i had someone perform a hit and run on my car and it messed up my nose and a small portion of my hood, so about 3 months ago i was reffered to a guy by my father in law. He fixed the damaged nose and hood and painted it for about $900 (not the whole car just the damaged parts). When i first got the car back it looked really good, but as time went on the paint started to seperate and crack really badly. Well i took it back to him he started making alot of excuses and said it would be another 300 bucks to fix it again, well i obviously was pissed off so the father law ended up talking to him and now it sounds like he might re-do it for free but hes talking about me bringing him a whole new nose. But before i go back again with the car i would like some opinions on exzactly WHY the paint it doing what its doing. Its seperating and cracking horribly bad, ill try to attach some pictures, thanxs for any help, im only a student and 900 dollars is alot to me so i expected it to be done once and right. Thanxs Mike

[This message has been edited by jimbuca (edited 06-25-2008).]

Hey joe, it probably took 1-2 months and was definatley cooler outside when paint was applied (early sping late winter). I really aprecciate your email, very informative and makes sense, it definatley looks as if the paint was tearing (also you could see in advance to it tearing that it looked like something was going on underneath the paint). I gave you a positive rating for such awesome help, i really appreciate it. I have much higher resolution pictures if you wanted to take a look.
Mike

sweet a canucks fan!!

im really not to sure why its cracking.
wrong kind of paint? not flexable enough? im not to sure.
to get rid of it i heard you have to sand right down to the plastic or whatever and repaint it. i know my Camaro front end has cracks and stuff in it. its annoying

Yea i bet there arent too many on the forum who are canucks fans let alone hockey fans haha. Should be an interesting year with Gillis at the reigns, im excited to see what changes are going to take place. As for the paint i really think its HIS responsibilty to sand it all the way down and repaint it, im a firm believer in standing behind your work and thats what he should do. Also to anyone else reading this post, joe gave me permission to post his email on his take to why exzactly the paint is messed up, so here it is (any advice or conformation of why the paint is tearing like it is would be much appreciated) so heres joes email:

"Mike , it appears some or all of the undercoats were not fully cured before top coating. (temp at time of repair, flash times not followed, wrong speed reducer, primer applied to heavy). you need better pics to be sure. some guys blow the primer with compressed air thinking it will decrease flash times ( this worked with old style paints & primers) but on the newer materials what it really does is form a skin over the primers last coat trapping solvents. this turns the underlying coats into a gel never fully curing. As the outer coats dry they shrink then tear at there weakest point( like jello pudding in your frig.) bottom line is strip off everything this guy applied solvent wipe it, let it dry well then start over. Joseph

P.S. this guy may have been doing his best with materials he was not familiar with & pushed them to fast !!"

*edit for spelling*

[This message has been edited by Loops87GT (edited 06-25-2008).]

Definitely the primer (maybe epoxy) was not fully cured before he shot the color on, & the primer is shrinking faster than the color coat. the color coat looks like straight enamel. the ONLY correct way of fixing it is to completely strip it ( or it WILL come back to haunt you) . if it were me, I WOULD replace the "nose".

I would consider buying a new front fascia (i noticed the "nose" so ill call it by its name haha) but there is not exzactly alot of fiero parts in Kamloops BC, none of the wrecking yards have fieros in them hardly never mind a GT or something with an aero fascia

Be glad he didnt paint the entire car.

Looks like the bondo shrank.

I did autobody for several years (was waht i went to school for way back). I must admit I dont know much about new paints and such (havent done any body work for anybody but myslef in 10+ years), but it appears to me he didnt put flex addative in the paint. Back in the 80-90's when i was doing it, you used a flex adative in bumpers and such that could flex and change (most cars in the last 20 years have the flexible plastic between or on bumpers). And yes it looks like something shrunk... but I have never seen anything liek it before.. but then again I followed the recomended procedures so I dont know what heppens when you dont..

to me it looks like the black paint didnt have the addative in it the black car got so hot that your car got .. hmm Stretch marks so to speak.. the plastic bumper expanded in the heat, and the paint didnt. Just a guess (and probebly a wrong one).

New nose? sound like a lazy body man to me.. strip the bad (if it is paint) totaly off reperp and paint it correctly... lotta work but any "real" body man who screwed up (if it is his screw up, and it appears to be) should make it right, no matter how much work it is.. Or was he going to pay for the new nose and install too?


Clok

Mike , Contact a local body shop & see who they are using to Recon there bumper covers, should be around 250.00 for this cover. there sublet contractor strips bumper of all coatings & will return it in flex primer repaired. ready for prep & paint. its a standard repair practise for bodyshops. Joseph

P.S. plastic covers dont expand & contract enough to cause this type of damage.

quote Originally posted by Loops87GT: i edited this picture to show what it started to do before the paint was cracking/tearing and show the areas where it looks like its going to do it more

well im going to go see him next week and im going to pass along what was said and get it across to him it was DEFINATLEY something he did and something he needs to fix, like i said, i already paid 900 bucks and it should be done right. thanxs for all the replys, i gave everyone a positive rating for the help

Look, who am I but a retired guy who does his own work. That said, DON'T LET THIS GUY TOUCH YOUR CAR!!

He is obviously a slacker and you won't get anything but grief. Buy an orbital sander and go to it. Start with 250 grit wetr/dry and go to 400 grit wet/dry and use a squeegy bottle. Wet it and sand it. Sand the whole thing down to smooth.

If you can possibly find somebody else, find them. Don't ask somebody to fix this because they'll charge by the hour to do the sanding you can do yourself. There is no easy way out of this one. Sand it yourself and get your helpfull father in law to help undo the damage. Believe me, you have to sand out everything that was sprayed on. Good luck on it.

Arn

quote Originally posted by Arns85GT: Look, who am I but a retired guy who does his own work. That said, DON'T LET THIS GUY TOUCH YOUR CAR!! He is obviously a slacker and you won't get anything but grief. Buy an orbital sander and go to it. Start with 250 grit wetr/dry and go to 400 grit wet/dry and use a squeegy bottle. Wet it and sand it. Sand the whole thing down to smooth. If you can possibly find somebody else, find them. Don't ask somebody to fix this because they'll charge by the hour to do the sanding you can do yourself. There is no easy way out of this one. Sand it yourself and get your helpfull father in law to help undo the damage. Believe me, you have to sand out everything that was sprayed on. Good luck on it. Arn

What do you think was the cause of the paint screwing like this Arn? if you dont mind me asking, you seem to know what your talking about and i would like as much opinions/confirmations as possible, thanxs
Mike

That's typical. It's next to impossible to find anyone that does good work. What he's done is sand it & putty it to smooth it out, probably using air-dry putty at that. What he *should* have done is strip it (to bare rubber or factory primer) & epoxy primer it, then shoot the paint.
I doubt very seriously he'll ever do it right. You can tell your father in law he recomended a con artist. He should return your money: it'll cost even more now to do it right 'cause all his crappy paint work weill have to be stripped off.
Paul

Ill agree with driver. If paint is cracked at all on a urathane cover it needs to be sanded down to bare surface. You have to repair it with flexible fillers, not typical polyester types. Even if you do all the above correctly, if the painter puts on too thick of a film it can still crack back. I put on 2 coats of color and 2 of clear. Urathane basecoats and clearcoats dont need flex added because their flexible on their own. Bumper rebuilders also use a latex water based primer rather than any normal type of automotive primer. Again, like driver said, looks to me like he just filled damage with body filler, regular primer and painted it. If you have good paint on the bumper in the first place, scuff sanding it well and just painting it with basecoat/clearcoat should not crack unless its in a crash again. What I find in many cases, especially from dealership body shops, is they take a bumper out of the box, wipe it off and paint it expecting it to stick. 6 months later its flying off at the car wash. Then I HAVE to fix it. I cant begin to tell you how many peeling bumper covers ive redone that didnt have the slightest sign of any kind of sanding or prep.

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I agree something shrank, filler, too much primer, looks like the typical paint tear.