Need some advice on Clearcoat failure

Ok so here's the situation, I just had a 2008 545i stop by, and it looked like pretty severe clearcoat failure. Not the kind where the clear is too thin, but the kind where it is lifting up off of the color coat as far as I can tell. Buffing made it better, maybe 50-60% better, but it was still noticeable.

From what I can tell it was repainted(PTG 200-230 microns, rest of the car 120's) and the painter did a crappy job. Should I tell him to get it repainted? Sand down some of the clear and buff it, then top it with Opti-coat? I've dealt with CC failure before but never from a crappy paint job. I was hoping I could buff it down and top it with Opti-coat but it would kill me to see it go back to the way it was in a month or two.

Thanks guys

 

If there is a problem with the clear, tell him to have it redone. There is nothing you can do if it is indeed lifting off the colour coat. Worst case scenario, the body shop says its because of something you did. I wouldn't touch it if I were you.

 

Totally agree with Ken - stop working on it; advise the Client he needs to take this back to the body shop and tell them to remove all the material they applied, and start over.
Too bad this had to happen to your client. Good thing you measured, and yes, the almost double the amount of paint where it was re-shot, is a clear indication, that something happened there.

Good luck with this !
Dan F

 

Thanks for the replies guys. To clarify I didn't work on the car yet, he came by to have me look at it and I compounded out a test spot 2x with D300/MF Cutting. He's had it for a year and the problem has been evident for a while. He's the 2nd owner of the car and it was already re-painted when he bought it so I'm not sure what to tell him. I explained everything to him about what had probably happened with the re-paint.

So what should I advise him to do? Confront the dealer for selling it to him like this? He's had it for a year already and the extra warranty just ran out. Or just tell him to take it back and get re-painted? He was pretty happy with the test spot and just making it better, and I'd be happy to do it for him and throw some Opti-coat on if that would stop the paint from re-failing, I know it has with thin clearcoats.

I'll probably go with the re-painting option, just would hate for him to get it re-sprayed and then have some more problems with the re-spray. How much would a Trunk and hood re-spray be roughly? Also, on the hood it has drips going down through the clearcoat failure in which the clearcoat is absolutely fine. It's a weird problem since I have no idea what would cause that.

 

What does the Client want to do ?? That's the big question..

If it was my car, I would go back to the Dealer, get the Service Manager out there and show him the problem. He needs to ask them if they had this car repainted, and why was it repainted ?? Who repainted it?? Was it in an accident? Fire?? Why wasn't this disclosed when he was buying the car ? Will they repaint this correctly for him at no cost ??? How would the Dealership feel about being on TV for not disclosing this ? If they blow him off, he needs to get an Attorney who will write a letter on his Letterhead, to the Owner of the Dealership, telling him of the problem, that it wasn't disclosed, etc., and now he wants it fixed back to the Factory Standard. If this gets blown off, he needs to tell them he is taking them to Court.
Question - was this a "Certified Pre-Owned BMW" It it is, then he may have more leverage - they don't want to have the reputation of selling cars with problems. And being Certified, someone at the Dealership was responsible for looking at the paint condition- what was their report ???

Dont write off auto body shops just yet. They are repairing and painting millions of cars all the time. Some shops do excellent work and stand by it with a lifetime warranty.
If your Client wants to get it fixed permanently, then he needs to find the right shop that can handle this. He needs to walk around the shop,, look it over for cleanliness, etc., find out how long the Painter has been painting, what will the process be to remove the defective paint and respray it? What does the Paintbooth look like? Clean? New? Dirty inside? No Filters?
A good, ;honest, shop should have no problems answering all the questions and giving him a tour.

Good luck with this -
Dan F

 

Thanks Dan, you've been a huge help. I'll let him know to take it to the dealer and see if they won't fix it. Thanks for the advice guys!

 

Delamination

Clear coat detachment is the result of inferior preparation prior to the application of the clear coat. This may be evident on any area of a vehicle where there is trim such as mouldings door handles, window trim, etc. You need to remove the entire clear coat and re-apply a base coat and finally a clear coat. If you don't the new paint will separate due to delamination of the original clear coat under the new paint you applied.

Correction- repair requires correctly preparing the area by cleaning and sanding, the base coat must be examined (checked with a paint thickness meter) to insure correct film build and the clear re-applied. The entire panel should be refinished rather than attempting a ‘spot repair’. Any attempt to hide the defect by wet sanding and polishing / compounding will result in further damage by removing the paint build (thickness)