Help Please

C

CBlack

New member
My wife purchased a new, black car. 10 minutes after leaving the dealership we noticed a large dent (golf ball size) on the roof. They fixed the dent and put touchup paint on the two large chips that were present.



Will the touchup paint be permanent? Any issues that may arise?



Feedback would be much appreciated.
 
I am suprised that you didn't notice a large golf ball sized dent on the roof prior to delivery...especially on black. The last 3 brand new cars that I bought, I went over the paint with a fine tooth comb (less minor dealership induced swirling), but I looked for dents, dings, chips, etc. To me, something like this on black would have stood out. Anyway, depending on what type of paint they used, re-cleared it, etc. and the amount of prep used in the repair process will play a large roll in the longevity of it.
 
The touchup paint should be fine if the chip itself was preped correctly to remove any wax. Easy way to tell is take it to the self car wash and spray it with the pressurized water up close, or if you have a pressure washer available. Nine out of ten times the touchup paint is pretty hardy, but last week when pressure washing a car the paint chipped away and failed, so I figure that's a good milestone for seeing if it's meant to last.
 
Street5927 said:
I am suprised that you didn't notice a large golf ball sized dent on the roof prior to delivery...especially on black. The last 3 brand new cars that I bought, I went over the paint with a fine tooth comb (less minor dealership induced swirling), but I looked for dents, dings, chips, etc. To me, something like this on black would have stood out. Anyway, depending on what type of paint they used, re-cleared it, etc. and the amount of prep used in the repair process will play a large roll in the longevity of it.
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The car was brought in from another lot and we picked it up at night. Thinking, "this is a new car, it should be "perfect," we took it for granted. We didn't notice it until after it was under decent light, else this would not have happened.



rcrobbins said:
The touchup paint should be fine if the chip itself was preped correctly to remove any wax. Easy way to tell is take it to the self car wash and spray it with the pressurized water up close, or if you have a pressure washer available. Nine out of ten times the touchup paint is pretty hardy, but last week when pressure washing a car the paint chipped away and failed, so I figure that's a good milestone for seeing if it's meant to last.
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Good idea. I have a 1500psi electric washer I can try out.



Thanks for the input.



After posting this, I looked at it more closely after using a QD to clean the area up. There are a lot of scratches and the touchup paint they used looks like they just globbed (for lack of a better term) it in there.



I will be bringing it back.
 
CBlack said:
For reference, how would they do that? Sand down to metal and start from there (body shop)?
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They can probably avoid such drastic measures unless the damage is quite severe.



Properly done, a touch up is just:



-clean out the chipped area

-apply basecoat paint

-apply clearcoat until touchup is higher than surrounding paint

-level touchup relative to surrounding paint via sanding

-compound out sanding marks

-polish out compounding marks



It's doing the above properly that's the trick ;)



Welcome to Autopia! Hope you get this resolved.



Note that shoddy work is often disguised via "glazes", products that conceal scratches/etc. for a short time. The assumption is that you'll think things are OK, go away, and then not bother them again. To check that they didn't do this, you can try the following:



-buy a *VERY* soft microfiber towel and some rubbing alcohol

-dampen the MF towel with the alcohol and wipe the touched up area (the alcohol will clean off any glaze)

-inspect in good lighting

-ask how they plan to redo the job right ;)

-maybe even tell 'em you want a different "truly new and undamaged" car ;)



Good luck with this, many dealerships are, uhm...underhanded (to put it politely) and I hope yours isn't like that.
 
Thanks for the input and welcome.



Dropped it off yesterday and picked it up an hour ago. It looks just like it was supposed to...smooth and clean.



Apparently they tried someone new for that type of work and he let his son do the work who had no experience. They sent to an experienced person this time. Looks good as new.



For the basecoat and clearcoat paint that is used, I assume it is not the types you get at Auto( ) by Duplicolor?
 
CBlack- Glad it worked out OK. Yeah, it's a safe bet that the paint they used is different than DupliColor, but hey, you never know.
 
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