gurot1

I had to have both rear quarter panels painted last summer. I was getting ready to detail the car this spring and I noticed that the clearcoat seemed to be bubbling up a bit along the edges of where it was painted. looks like they didnt take the trim off before painting the quarter panels. I initially noticed it along the chrome trim on the driver side door (which I thought was OEM paintjob still, but as it turns out it may have been repainted!). I took it to acura and they sent me to their bodyshop...one of the best shops in town (unfortunately I didnt have it painted there last summer). They were gonna fix it on warranty, but the guy took a look at it at the shop and he said that the door had been painted. He said the orange peel effect on the door matched exactly with the orange peel effect on the rear quarter panel. We also took a look at the passenger door and there was no clearcoat issues. He also pointed out how the paint on the passenger door was smoother than the repainted rear quarter panel; the difference was noticeable in the sun. So now i have to go back to the guy that originally painted the quarter panels. As far as he was aware the front door wasn't painted and my buddy had dropped by the shop last summer when they were painting it and he said that the door was all masked off so it would seem that at the time the bodyshop had not intended on painting the door. Anyhow, does anyone know what needs to be done to fix the clearcoat? A guy mentioned something about them polishing it or something. Or would the whole panel have to be re-clearcoated?

JakeCL

to paint the quarters on a cl you need to take out the 1/4 panel glass and at least remove the back glass moulding if not the entire piece of glass as well as the taillights, this is done by most quality shops in order to insure you have no hard lines exposed that are able to chip. it costs more to have it done but the finished product wont have the problems your talking about and if they paint the door they have to take off the mirror take out the handle and the moulding under the window for the same reasons

gurot1

It looks like the shop took the easy way out. damn it i might have to get it repainted. I'll have to see what the body shop says

gurot1

Does anyone know what the bodyshop is saying that polishing the clearcoat and then using some rubbing compound might fix the bubbling? Is that just a temporary measure?

JakeCL

yea they want to color sand and buff it, it may take care of the problem and it may not,
the bottom line is you got what you paid for. you probably chose a shop based on price and they were able to give you that price by masking instead of taking stuff out, its common practice on wholesale cars for used car lots and at low end paint shops like macco but it doesnt fly with insurance work at least not here. now... if you went in there asking for a great paintjob and wanted to make sure it lasted for a long time they definatly should have told you about this.

gurot1

It was the body shop that my buddy used to have his integra repainted (the whole car) He's been dealing with the guy for awhile and never had any problems. It did go through insurance, but the guy wasn't one of their authorized dealers. I thought I'd go with the guy cause my buddy recommended him. The insurance adjuster was a pain in the ass too, he only authorized a bit under 900 bucks to fix the dent and repaint everything, most of the bodyshops (even the authorized ones) were saying that it would be close to $1200CDN. I had already given the car in to the bodyshop and then when the adjustor came he reduced the payment to ~900 of which I had to pay a $500 deductable! I paid another 200 to have the other quarter panel painted as well...the bumper and stuff was already off so it reduced their labour a bit.