MikeekiM

My paint blistered by the driver's side headlight... Apparently there is some rubbing of the light against the front bumper, causing the small blister... I scraped away the loose paint, and let it be... It really did not look all that bad...

A week later, the paint blistered a little more... I scraped the paint away...

I brought the car to Acura, and the manager there was very cool about it... He said he would take the bumper and have it repainted... My reaction was a little shocking... I have a feeling that repainting the entire front bumper will cause me more problems that it is worth (paint matching, chance of screwing up my OEM front underbody lip, etc...)

I took the car to the body shop that the dealer uses for him to assess the "damage"... His opinion was that if it were his car, he would simply put some touch up paint on it and monitor it during the warranty period... He checked the paint adherence, and he does not think it is in danger of continuing to peel...

He agrees that there may be some disadvantages to doing a full strip down and repaint of the bumper... But he would do it...and he was confident that it would be a "Grade A" job (and based on the cars I saw from his work, I believe it)...

What would you all do?

I am leaning towards going with the touchup paint and monitoring it...

fsttyms1

They wont strip the full bumper, they may to the exact thing by applying touch up paint and buffing to match, if they do respray the whole thing odds are they might even spray into the fender to blend the paint. i wouldnt worry about it not matching as mush as why its coming off in the first place. something is rubbing and causing it to chip off. that needs to be delt with also

MikeekiM

Thanks... Certainly that was what I would have expected...

However, I am certain that they are talking about stripping and repainting... They told me very specifically that they would remove the front bumper and send it out to get stripped...and they would paint it...

And I agree with you...I need to figure out why it's rubbing in the first place...

What I couldn't get from your reply was which you would pursue... A respray, or touchup?

fsttyms1

it all depends on the amount of chiping. if it was enough i would spray it, but i would only blend the area needed. not restrip it (which i highly doubt any dealer would. they usually say that type of thing to make it sound like they are going to give you a better paint job)
if the chipping was small, id just do the touch up and wetsand and polish to match

JRA2000TL

Yeah if they strip and re-paint the entire bumper, they need to be extremely careful. Whoever painted mine before I bought it did a horrible ass job and yes they painted the fenders too. I am leaving the fenders as-is, but rocks have already chipped the paint off this "new" sucky paint job. I'm thinking about having mine re-done again but done alot better this time. The last person that did it basically got paint all on the undercarriage past where the last part of where the bumper cover bolts in under the car. That is my only complaint with the car and being that I looked over the car at dusk when I was going to buy it (a big no-no), I didnt crawl under and notice, nor did I notice the slight off-matching. The touch up would be the way to go at 1st and if it looks like crap, then have it re-done; just make sure it's done with a Grade A rating or have them re-do it. Keeping paintwork minimal on a car is always best if you can get away with it. BTW, speaking of paint, do any of you know how I could get all that white paint off my undercarriage? It's more than just overspray, its pretty bad.

MikeekiM

I tend to agree with you... My gut tells me to just have it touched up and monitor it...

At the same time, I am going to ask my Acura dealership to document that the paint was peeling/chipping due to a workmanship issue, and that I agreed to touch it up and monitor it... I am hoping that sort of documentation will give me some recourse if it gets worse and I have to take it back during my extended warranty period...

The guys at Acura felt that this would be a good thing to document, cuz once a car has too many miles on it, the Acura regional management frowns on doing any sort of paint related warranty work... He said it was because a lot of paint problems are due to normal wear and tear of rocks and stuff hitting the car, along with some people get into minor accidents that cause the paint problems...

The guys at the body shop volunteered to do the touch up for me... I feel fairly comfortable doing it myself, but if they are willing to do it, I would rather have someone who does touch up work day-in and day-out rather than doing it myself...