Ok, sorry for the rant but I'm not sure which forum to post this in. Due to an episode of stupidity on my part I had some body damage on my rear quarter panel and due to a few short but deep scratches I was forced to repaint rather than do paintless dent repair. I took my car to five shops before making a choice and I chose the one I felt the most confident would do a great job (aside from the reassurance from the owner while getting the estimate, their motto is "if you're particular..."). So, I thought this was the place for me.

Anyway, I was told it would take a few days and left my car there for the week. It took longer than they expected but I got it back the end of the day on Friday. Although the color match was spot on (I have SSM, and was very concerned about this) there were a few other issues I noticed right away. Before I got in to it with the assistant manager he told me the delay was due to a lot of difficulty getting the paint to blend correctly. I told him my list of complaints I noticed right off the bat. First there were a few specs or small bumps in the paint on the area they repainted. I'd estimate there are probably at least two dozen of them that are easily seen in the shade and a few that are big enough to be obvious in any kind of light. I was told these were "dirt nibs" and that I should come back within 2-4 weeks (to give the paint time to cure) and they can wet sand those out and it will look just fine. I was skeptical, but this is literally my first time having to deal with a body shop in my 12 years of owning cars. Second, they had to repaint part of the rear door too in order to get the bend right and take care of one of the scratches. When doing this they left a lip (!) along the edge of the door. I said the rest of the doors do not have this lip of paint along the edge and I wanted that fix as well. Again he said to come back in 2-4 weeks and they can wet sand that out as well. I was upset, didn't want to pay but ended up paying for 75% of the bill so I could drive my car in the meantime. He said I could pay the rest when I come back to get those issues taken care of.

Aside from these two main problems, there are a few minor issues that have bugged me too. One, when looking critically you can see that there is a bit of orange peel to the finish on the newly painted area. It must be under the clear coat, but you can see it if you look for it. I'm less inclined to complain about this because when not looking for it (and if the "nibs" were gone) most would have trouble identifying where the new paint stopped and old began. Also, it looks like when they had to remove part of the chrome trim around the rear door window they placed it somewhere that it got scuffed up. Not sure if I am that picky to replace that or not, but I was annoyed they weren't more careful. Lastly I just noticed a bump in the paint, it's more like a line that is about two and a half inches long. It's barely noticeable in the sun but quite noticeable in the shade.

Anyhow, sorry for the rant. I guess this being my first body shop experience I've found it to be quite stressful and I'm not sure how picky I should be about these issues. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a paint job free of "nibs" and that the finish on the door matches the rest of the doors on the car. I'm still kicking myself for my stupid mistake but paying $850 for this kind of result is not helping me either. So I just wanted to ask other folks who have some experiences with body shops on what I should be expecting and what I should do when I take it back in a week or so.

Thanks,
TZ

 

sorry to hear of your troubles. try posting pics so we can better picture the issue at hand. also, be sure to take shots from varied angles and with varied lighting so we can see the nuances in the paint job.

 

Sounds like a bad body shop to me. If they admitted to having trouble blending the paint, then they obviously had no clue what they were doing.

 

i agree, and the only way to get rid of the orange look in the paint is wetsanding it before putting on the clearcoat, it's the normal way to do so, if they wanted to a good job, the had to have it wetsanded after painting on the color, after that putting on the clearcoat, and sand it a liitle more. clearcoat is more liquid then the lacker itself, so it fills up the holes. the only thing you''ll get out of this is that there gonna wetsand away the clearcoat that surrounds the little holes, meaning the holes would have a normal clearcoat protection, while the surrounding area would be sanded away at most.

 

Ack, this is making me lose sleep. The most frustrating aspect is that I thought I did my research and was making a sound decision on this place. I was frankly quite let down when I saw the lack of quality. I think they rushed it so that I would have my car back before the weekend, but they were already a day late at that point. I am getting the impression that to do this right they will need to re-do the entire job from the start then?

I will try to get some pictures that capture the issues I am talking about.

Oh, and here is the place I took it to in case anyone on here is from the Twin Cities area and has experience with them.

 

I had my TSX fixed a month ago...the paint came out flawless...you couldn't even tell it had been painted from a few feet away. It does seem like a shoddy paint job. If you're not satisified, they didn't give your car the detail it needs.

And I agree, if they can't blend it properly, they obviously don't know how to paint.

 

In the end the blending was perfect. I was told at each shop that blending the silver would be very difficult so I was relieved to see that. When the assistant manager said they had trouble, he said that the paint was "lifting" on the first two attempts. I am not sure what he meant by "lifting".

No good photos today, I'll try again tomorrow....

 

Ok, sorry for the delay getting the photos, the dirt nibs were harder to capture than I thought they would be and I needed to wash the car in order to see all the problems. There are quite a few nibs and most of my pictures don't capture them, especially when resized, but they feel like little bumps in the paint.

The photo hosting site is slow, I apologize. Please see the links at the end for more.

It appears to have no clear coat on part of the driver's door at all. The problem is they were only supposed to blend the paint from part of the rear door to the rear quarter panel of the car. I'm not sure why they even had to go this far.


Dirt nib under the handle


They were also supposed to replace the fuel lid door, the new one has some resistance and after some investigation I realized why. Seems to be scraping the paint off.


There is also some furring around the fuel lid door opening which bothers me.

Here you can see the scratched up window trim and lip of paint they added to the rear door. Ack!

More dirt nibs and lip on door.

Some reddish brown scratches I noticed after washing the car, these should buff out fortunately.

 

that's some sh*tty work, they are suppose to fix the damage , not make more. i wouldn't put up with this work, i would demand of them do do it again and this time like it 's supposed to be done, if not take it somewhere else and have those guys pay for it. these things tick me off
sorry to hear that it's not working out for ya, like you expected it to.

 

That's bad paint job...it happened to me before too. I still can see the area they painted on the hood and they called that "quality job" and after I complained about the quality job they did, they started calling me "crazy car mania." Finally I gave up and it hurts every time I see my hood. Anyway, I hope you get what you looking for

 

That's shoddy work.Take it back to the repair shop and show them and demand it be fixed properly.there's no excuse for that standard of work.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll be taking it back very soon to complain about this. Just seems the more I look the more problems I find. It was hard enough staying calm the first time, but I made it very clear I was not pleased at all with the work they did. Just go in there smiling and civil at first, they surely have no idea how much I've been stressing about this.