Industrial paint overspray all over my dads mini. HELP!

W

White_07_G6_GT

New member
My Dads red mini was left at his office over the weekend and he returned on Monday afternoon to find it covered in a fine white paint. His office is in a industrial park where all manner of things are built etc in the surrounding area. His was not the only car to suffer this fate and it wasn’t long before we got to the bottom of things. Turns out that a company one street over was painting some equipment outside on Friday. His Mini which is red now was tiny white spots all over it. The glass and paint surface is ruff to the touch. It was 30+ degrees all weekend the car sat outside for 4 full days I won’t see it until tonight.



So what are my options?? Aggressive clay, Heavy compounding, wet sanding?



How would you ever get it off the windows or trim? It's bonded to the surface by now when I asked him to if he could feel it with his finger nail he said he could.



I’m taking it to a body shop that I deal with from time to time to get their price for repairing the damage for insurance purposes tomorrow.



The police are involved and so is the ministry of the environment so far 18 cars have been reported damaged.



I’ll post up some pictures when I get the car later tonight.



Any help would be greatly appreciated!



Simon
 
I'd be looking for that paint company and let them know about it. But claying the whole car will be required to remove the overspray.
 
my dads car suffered the same thing. when i washed it last week, i noticed how rough the finish was when i was washing/drying it and upon closer observation, it was paint overspray (little red dots). i ended up claying it...
 
Anything that rest on top of the paint can be removed by clay barring the surface. It's a PITA sometimes but it's not a huge deal to get "overly" concerned about. Sounds to me like a local detailer will make some good money off this incident when it's reported and they have to pay for a lot of cars to get cleaned up
 
I've seen good ole' WD-40 work wonders on removing road line paint so I'd give that a shot first. If that doesn't work I'd break out the clay like the others have suggested. Good luck and let us know what you used and how it comes out.
 
Thanks guys, I never would have believed that clay could remove paint like this. It's going to be a freakin nightmare to do the entire car but I'm going to attack a panel or two tonight.



Pics will be up tonight.
 
Here's what I would do.



Get the ABC decontamination wash from Valugard(Automotive International - Valugard Product Line), they are having a special on it. That will remove some of the overspray, as well as soften it up a bit. You may also want to get a quart of their new car prep, it is a safety solvent that is safe for trim.



Once you have used ABC, the rest of your time will be spent with a good clay bar, clay lube, a good safety solvent, and plastic razor blades. If you have any trim that has been severely damage, your only choice is to redyel; you can get ETR from Valugard, or the Trimonex dye kit from Top of the Line(Top of the Line Auto Detailing Supplies), both are similar chemistry and work very well for a permanent solution.



You may also want to call Valugard and ask for Ron Ketcham, he can be more specific with what needs to be done, and if you can contact the company that sprayed the paint and find out exactly what was used, he can may be able to provide an easier solution.



You may also want to contact autopia member Jimmy Buffit, he has pretty good experience dealing with industrial overspray.
 
A quick update, Megs Aggressive and Ricardo clay didn't do anything. I gave the car a quick wash with dawn and tried both clays. I thought I saw some change with the Megs but it was just the paint surface getting a cleaner. The paint spots didn't change.



Gbackus I appreciate the info info I'm going to go over those products tomorrow.



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White_07_G6_GT said:
A quick update, Megs Aggressive and Ricardo clay didn't do anything. I gave the car a quick wash with dawn and tried both clays. I thought I saw some change with the Megs but it was just the paint surface getting a cleaner. The paint spots didn't change.



Gbackus I appreciate the info info I'm going to go over those products tomorrow.
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If clay didn't touch it, I seriously doubt an ABC wash will either. That's not what it's made to do. You need to find out the name of the product used when they painted and/or the label on the paint container and call AutoInt to find out the best way to remove it. Or, go the sandpaper route. However, this can only correct what's on the painted surfaces and glass, not really any trim (especially textured).



Why don't you contact the painters that caused this and have them make an insurance claim with their insurance company?? Repairs like this can equate to many $1000's. Why do it and not get paid?
 
David Fermani said:
Why don't you contact the painters that caused this and have them make an insurance claim with their insurance company?? Repairs like this can equate to many $1000's. Why do it and not get paid?
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It falls into the "No Fault" part of our insurance. Since he did nothing to with this other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time his insurance can't go up. The guy who owns the company said to one of the other people who are going through " It's no big deal I can a it detailed for $150 to fix the overspray." Good idea about getting that info I'm going to call them to find out what they were using.



I have a friend who owns a shop and we were talking tonight about putting it through his shop and then paying me to fix the problem but I'm really not sure that I can fix this. Plus that's not exactly honest.
 
The person/company that created this mess on your car is 100% liable to get every spec of paint off every part of your car. If they are doing work on commercial buildings, they have insurance to pay for this. Don't deal with the people at their company. You'll end up getting a bunch of excuses and you'll end up getting blown off. Speak to their insurance company and they'll end up hopefully doing the right thing. I very familiar with these types of claims and feel you should have no problem getting paid to have your car fixed by a qualified overspray removal specialist.
 
David Fermani said:
If clay didn't touch it, I seriously doubt an ABC wash will either. That's not what it's made to do.
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I'm looking at my Valugard flowcharts right now, and AutoInt officially recomends ABC before any overspray removal, as it will help to loosen the bond.
 
I've used their system on 100's of vehicles and it never did much of anything for overspray. It's designed to remove fallout and acid rain deposits from vehicles. Depending on what's on this vehicle, I wouldn't waste time or money until I knew exacty what will work. Especially if clay isn't touching it. That's usually an indicator that this is a severe case that needs a dedicated method.
 
David Fermani said:
I've used their system on 100's of vehicles and it never did much of anything for overspray. It's designed to remove fallout and acid rain deposits from vehicles. Depending on what's on this vehicle, I wouldn't waste time or money until I knew exacty what will work. Especially if clay isn't touching it. That's usually an indicator that this is a severe case that needs a dedicated method.
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The fact is, both my prep excellence manual and valugard flowcharts state that ABC will help to loosen the chemical bond from paint overspray.



We can agree to disagree, but every overspray removal I have performed has been helped along with ABC; everytime I have called Ketch for advice on a particular type of overspray, the response always began with "ABC first".
 
Having a clean surface always helps in any kind of paint repair. Especially a brand new vehicle. I'd be willing to bet that the outcome or ease of removal would be no different if you decon'd it. The only way I could see using a decon wash would be if the finish was really neglected/grimey/dirty andit didn't allow the overspray to bond to the surface. Decon kits are a valueable product (don't get me wrong), but they aren't the cure all, end-all thing. If the manufacturer had their choice, they'd want people to use it on every detail. Is it necessary - No. Is it helpful - Sometimes.
 
I agree with David. You can try the ABC system to soften the overspray but i don't think it will do much, it doesn't even remove tar for me.



First thing is to get yours and their insurance involved.



Last summer i did a lot of 5 cars with some sort of roofing epoxy overspray. First i tried a few heavy solvents, included lacquer thinner, and it didn't touch it. Then tried some clay and it barely removed it. So i ordered the most aggressive clay i could, Z-bar from Production and it removed it with about 2500-3000 grit marring.



Total time was 13 to 24 hours each for the 5 cars after final compound/polish and seal. The 24 hours was a black Ultima.



Their insurance guy (ex auto body) phoned me and said that they had some done in 5 to 7 hours. So i asked to see these cars and he had no answer.



I explained what i did and that the cars would not come back from unsatisfied customers. Overspray or swirls. Last i heard from him.



Their insurance will always settle for the bare minimum. I gave the customer the maximum at the insurances expense.
 
Sorry to see this happen to a nice Mini. I am also very interested to see what is going to remove it, if it just laughed at aggressive clay.
 
Well here is the update. The insurance company agreed on a full repaint of the car. I went to a 2nd shop that the insurance company wanted to try and they tried 6 different products, they wouldn't tell me what any of them were and not one worked even a bit. The then called the insurance company and suggested a full repaint and trim replacement. To make things worse we found some on the inside of the car it's on the dash and on the seats as well. How it got in there is total mystery.



So two weeks from now I should have the car back in as new condition.
 
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