Newly painted w/ scratches and swirls. What to do?

[SuperNovaSS]

Sorry to hear about the trouble. You may want to try taking the car to a detail shop to buff the paint before having it repainted. If they were not sanding the car before buffing and not causing any hot spots, the clear loss is minimal. Also, if you want coats of clear you should apply 5 or 6. By the time you color sand it will take at least a few coats off. On a smaller car like a Camaro or Nova I usually end up with about a pint left of the gallon of clear. That works out to about a gallon and a quarter of shootable material. Its not how many coats or the amount of material sprayed that counts in the end, its the way it is layed down and how much is lost in the air. Again, sorry to hear about the trouble. I not a lawyer but I doubt you will have much recourse with the shop since you took the car back at a discount. Do you have anything in writing as to the reason you took the car back without paying the balance?
By the way, you are not alone. I have NEVER got a car back from a paint shop exactly as promised. I rarely use the same shop twice as the quality goes down as they realize they can walk all over you.


Jason

[Tim Greer]

Well, this wasn't about the paint not being exactly as promised, it's that its got too many problems to even try and list here. I should have legal recourse, because I didn't have a choice -- they didn't have a booth and said it would be at least another two months to reshoot the car, and they had it for 22 months, when their estimate was 3 months in mid-May of 2007. I think the judge would agree that it was unreasonably long, since there's no reason for the huge difference (the shop has none). They lost items, damaged other items, and the paint job I had paid for was not performed.

They didn't live up to their end of the contract (I have absolute proof of this, it's not just my own interpretation) and I offered every means for resolution, but they weren't going to replace the windows they damaged, the lost stereo, etc. However, before I open a report with the Cal BAR, I will most certainly have a list of repair estimate costs for them to agree to pay -- I will give them a chance.

It would be different in the paint was simply just not perfect, but this is in sub standard condition by a long shot, not including the fact they failed to put the car back together to be mechanically sound, the electrical fails for a lot of things, the glass, the stereo, the parts they damaged that I brought in to them new with no damage, the brakes, and on and on. I'm pretty sure I have a case.

As for the clear, the scratches and other issues run to the base coat and to the metal, so it's not going to buff out. I understand that some people can't properly detail a car, but these problems aren't going to be able to be buffed out. If they could be, I'd not have such a big problem with it. Also, they'd never have agreed that it needed to be re-shot. The fact that they didn't demand I pay the final balance is just them admitting their work sucked and wasn't what I paid for, if it says anything, not including the additional problems I found as I was driving it home.

Anyway, I get what you mean about the clear, it's not how many layers, it's about how thick the layers are as well, how much is actually on the car, etc. Four layers of clear might not be as thick as one or two that someone else shot, if they skimped (intentionally or not) and just sprayed it with light coats (which is what it appears they did). I asked them if I needed to sign anything or if there was anything else when I was about to drive off with the car and he said no, so I didn't ever sign anything saying the work was complete, and in fact I told him specifically to that effect that there were a lot of issues that needed to be resolved and asked if "in those two months from now" if it was something they would be willing to resolve if I brought the car back.

I asked if he'd reshoot it and reclear for the final balance if I decided to do that, and he said he would, but didn't know when he could and it would "be a while". They haven't set up their paint booth yet and they don't even have the permit to do it, and it's not an easy thing to do (it's very difficult to get a permit to run a paint booth at a location where there isn't already one, so he better hope it's zoned for it, or he's screwed). The booth he said he was renting is at a shop that's going out of business.

So, in the end, through absolutely no fault of mine, they failed miserably to perform the work as outlined on the work order and caused numerous additional problems and damages that I'm going to have to get fixed -- and they will pay. If they don't, I will sue them in small claims and I will win (I have no doubt about it). If it ends up being a difference of only $1,000 or less, I might just call it a loss, but over that, especially in the $2-4K range, I'm not going to take a loss.

I paid them to perform work that they didn't perform, they knew they did terrible work and it was worse than even I thought when I picked up the car (they never mentioned any of these other issues and said everything was working -- it wasn't). No freaking way would I lose. I do understand they may be shut down and moved away by the time I take them to court or win, let alone for them to have the money to pay me when they lose, but luckily it's not too much to file.

I also understand that just because you're being fair and doing the right thing, and even if you're right, it doesn't mean you'll win, but I just don't see how I couldn't. I'm taking the car to the same mechanic that worked on these very same things (to a point) before these fools got a hold of it and screwed everything up. What a mess. Oh, and ironically, this is pretty funny, I noticed on their new business cards today, on the back, it says "COMPLETE PAIN STARTING AT $500". "Pain"? That's is one hell of an ironic typo!

[Mr70]

I remember vividly,back in the 1985,watching one of our local Chevy dealerships have an overly aggressive delivery prep assistant single handedly scratch the clear coat on a bunch of new arrivials for sale.
He was an older guy too which surprised me as I thought he would've had experience of what he was doing,and even raised on lacquer as the BC/CC was fairly new to the public and apparently this guy as well.
His job was to lightly wash and polish all that came off the ramp trucks,but he musta been using the wrong power tool,pad,compound and mentality altogether.
He stood over each and put so much pressure on them,that you immediately saw the swirls and scratches before he was done.Especially on the cars with soft plastic front air damns like Monte Carlos and Camaros.
He looked like he didn't care,and quite honestly I blamed the Mgmt. moreso,as absolutely no one was overseeing him,or checking his work.
I walked up to a few cars he finished,and my finger nails would actually get caught in the circular patterns he ground in.It was a real shame to see IROCS,Vettes,Z24's and Super Sports that way especially,and once I called the Service advisor over,he halted the employee from doing anymore damage,and reprimanded the Bodyshop manager.
I won't name the dealer,but they didn't have a very good Team..

[Tim Greer]

That reminds me, I forgot to mention that a good portion of the swirls did come out when he did the final detail, but a good amount of them remained (especially the deep straight one's when someone was putting too much pressure on it). Unfortunately the more severe aspects that go beyond that made me forget to mention it.

[Tim Greer]

Well, the car is in worse condition than I thought. I found chips showing rust underneath, and the paint came right off when I flicked it with my finger. I found another area that was down to the base primer and just ran my fingernail against it lightly to feel how deep it was, and more paint just came right off as I ran my nail over it. I have 227 images I've taken showing all of the problems and I have a list of all of the issues with the running of the car.

I'm going to spend the next hour or two compiling a big, detailed list and getting the images uploaded all onto a web page outlining the issues (I'll post a link here for people to see what I'm talking about). Following that, I'll email the body shop with the link encouraging them to read it. I'll then call him (from another phone line, so he doesn't know it's me, or else he won't answer or ever call me back) telling him to check his email.

I'll then let him know my intention and that I'll be filing a report with the California Bureau of Automotive Repair (where their license is currently in a delinquent state), and that I will file in small claims court for the max ($5K, I believe), because it's going to cost that much to have it done right and fix what these crooks tried to pull off. I'll also print an entire hard copy of the page and snail mail it to them.

At this point, for the steps to resolve the paint issue, it's no longer going to just be a prep and repaint, but to actually strip it down to the metal because they painted over rust. I found a lot of major runs and some holes (yes, holes). This car had only a few small rust areas on it, and it makes me really uneasy to see that they just sprayed paint over an area where the rust is flaking off. I'm so angry, but I'll do everything by the book and ensure I have a solid case (which I am sure I do).

[Tim Greer]

With all of the issues, it's incredibly difficult to chose only 10 or 15 pictures, and I don't want a huge page. I'll likely have a summary of the issues and try and cover everything in a couple of paragraphs and the most 10-15 offensive issues the car has, and then have a link that goes to a page with all of the images for reference and documentation. This way, no one following the link here or the shop, will have to be overwhelmed with it, but the information will be there if someone needs or wants to look more into it. It should be easy enough to outline the problems and not have to go into a big story about it to explain what happened, because they know, I know, and everyone on the forums I've posted this issue to also know that.

[Tim Greer]

I know it's long, but it's hard to document something and get your point across and outline all of the relevant details to get that point across, but I was able to get the images small, so the entire page of images are only 23 megs.

The page is at: http://www.chatbase.com/camaro/

That is basically what I sent to them. Yeah, I know it's wordy and long, but I didn't want to leave anything out. And that was without going into the rest of the stuff we all know from my previous posts above (and they already know it). I'll see how it goes. They'll either settle, lose the suit (no way could they win with all of the additional evidence and images I have), or they'll be out of business (hopefully not before I recoup my losses to be able to get some money for the amount I'm going to have to pay a body shop to do it right).