Paint repair recommendations

V

vettefan67

New member
My vehicle is a 1992 Alfa Romeo 164L. Great car, but the paint needs some work. It has a lot of small stone chips on the front of the hood, most being down to the whitish colored (primer?). I've been told it would cost me about $600-800 for a quality paintjob on the hood.



This all sounds well and good, but there are 2 problems:



1) Budget; being a part time working college student, I cannot afford something like this right now and the chip damage is not from vandalism so insurance won't cover that.



2) I was told the clear could be wearing somewhat thin. The person who told me this was a specialized Alfa mechanic so I'm not totally sure of its validity, but....





Come to think of it, there is a dent on the hood about 3-4" across, with a deep scratch horizontally across it. The paint could "pop" if I were to have that dent removed, so the entire hood would need painting. Say this dent was caused by vandalism, would my insurance pay for the painting of the whole hood?



Recommendations? I obviously have to compromise something because of my budget but I want the car to look its best!



Thanks,

Justin
 
one word puterbum



birthday :bounce



and if that doesn't work the old birthday/christmas combo is good



and then grades for gifts is the other program that you can swing on too :D



(course you can write a shop and tell them how much you need this for free)
 
Yeah, I realize that's an option but I don't want to be spending my entire budget on car stuff. I'm saving money for a lot of things after I get out of college, so I'd like to try to make it look good with the resources I'm willing to devote to it.



While typing up the post, the insurance idea really looked good to me, I guess I could pay the paint shop to do the chips while they are at it or maybe they will even do that with the insurance, I'll have to look into that :D
 
if you're in college to save money you're at the wrong school ;)



All of us graduates have hugomungo debts coming out of college (yes that's a word :D), and to make up for it we all got uber jobs to pay those debts off.



I still have college loans, but I get to write off the interest; it's like free money :) If you can take out money off your college loan, now that's an idea, no interest for 4 years and pay it when you land the cool CS job you've always wanted.
 
...hes still pure.....raising the youth of america is a hugomungo burden on us all.......sorry bout your paint dood.....go to yosteve.com...they have grants for college kids that are autopian members.....you just have to buy some Klasse and a bunch of MF's to be qualified....:D :p
 
hey floni, yosteve.com's done its share of dontating money to various funds. they'll help out college kids in need too...maybe :)
 
steve....you always got something funny say...and you know ur stuff...but dont get a big head......seriously.....putter....
try dent wizard for the dent....then you can worry bout the paint....see how much they can fix...they are not expensive and just go and get an estimate....

http://dentwizard.com/
 
FLONI--



Thanks for the reply but as I said in my post, my concern with getting the dent repaired is the scratches across the dent which will lead to the paint "popping" or breaking at that location. I'm not about to have a dent (not hurting car) replaced with areas of exposed primer/metal (car screams in pain).
 
it sounds like your already set on the insurance thingy....i guess you could say it happened on halloween....but i dont see how u cant go to dentwizard....they are pretty reputable...and they can tell u ahead of time.....what the chances of the paint"pooppping" are.....im trying to picture a dent on the hood that doesnt show too bad....do you have any pics.....sorry i cant be of more help:(
 
Except for the dents, do it yourself. There are several sources of advice on repairing paint chips, including one here:http://www.autopia-carcare.com/painchiprep.html.

Search the Web for more.

Also, there's a product called Lanka that claims to get rid of the typical blob of touch-up paint that often occurs when you brush it on. I've read many positive owner reviews of this:
www.langka.com/.

I think you can do it, save money and enjoy looking at your car again.
 
puterbum, I'm not passing judgement or anything but if your dent wasnt caused by vandalism and you file a vandalism claim with your insurance company that would be fraud. It may seem innocent enough now and we've all been screwed by insurance companies in the before but that still doesnt make it right. Just something to think about.
 
wow floni, not sure how I feel about that comment



I was only making suggestions based up my personal experience.



I happen to think that borrowing money for college and getting a way better job later is the way to go. Putting stuff on that loan, like computers, stereo equipment, and even car stuff, is far from extreme. It's way better than other things some of my friends in college bought with their stipends.



A technician at work told me I'm nuts for paying (well used to be paying) $400 a month for my college loans. It's my degree that allows me to pay that much and have more than that much more.



My sister in law owes a ton of money, but her master's in physical therapy degree is working out for her finally. America is the only place where you can do this so easily and then write off the interest. That's what I did, its working great for me and it's not teaching corruption at all.



As for asking for stuff from my parents. I often put my birthday and my christmas gifts (they're only a month apart) together to get the TV or VCR or whatever I wanted when I was that age. I didn't see any problem with that either.



Variety is the spice of life, do a search on yosteve and you'll see a lot of varied comments, many scientific, many funny, many different :)
 
WHAT....I WAS JOKING...OH...NOW YOU GET SENSITIVE ON ME....IT WAS A JOKE.....you of all people....maybe it wasnt funny...but i try....i didnt mean anything bad buddy....ya know im a nurse...and im pretty sensitive....so dont make me feel bad...:) ...seriously i was joking steve....this from the guy who has some of the funniest lines on here.....mr emoticon...:D ...

now can u pls go look at the post i pm'd you about and give me your opinion...which if i didnt value i wouldnt ask u to look at it....
 
Adamah--

Woah there! I said the paint damage was not caused by vandalism, but the dent was. I had my car parked in the lot at school last year and came back and the dent was there, presumably from the kids nearby playing baseball.



Sorry for the confusion, fraud is not the way for me...I earn what I pay for, pay for what I earn.





Mass Wine Guy--

There are many(20+, entire hood has tiny little dents in the paint from rocks...hard to see the dents though, and SMR will dull these effects) different paint chips on this 10 year old paint finish. Would it be realistic to repair them or would I just get a blotchy ugly finish? BTW, this is black with metallic silver paint, I'd have to get a $55 pint of paint mixed up from some place nearby for using about an ounce of paint...:mad: + primer + clearcoat?



puterbum
 
Definately check out the Alfa 164 website (http://www.digest.net/alfa/FAQ/164/) for more info on this question.

I've used regular black touchup paint on mine and Langka. Langka works OK, but if your paint chip is not very deep, it will tend to rub out the new paint. Maybe the trick is to let the paint dry for a longer period of time before applying the Langka.

Dom
1991 Alfa 164S
 
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