Halo around attempted paint chip repair

Hey Detailers-

I had a detailer come by to repair a small paint chip on my door and ran into some problems. Here's the step by step on what the detailer did to the best of my knowledge:


- paint chip
- paint chip was filled with touch up paint in multiple layers until filled with 20 minute drying periods
- clear was applied over the filled touch up paint and overlapping the chip itself
- wet sanded with 2000 grit


After the above steps, the paint was lumpy and the panel had a noticeable valley where the car was sanded. I attempted to level the paint and did so successfully (I think) by:


- layering on clear until a mound formed
- wet sanding with 1200, 1700, then 2000
- applied Meg's Rubbing Compound with a PC


Upon leveling the paint, I noticed a dark halo around the area that got larger and larger as I was wet sanding - similar to this image below in a helpful thread (DIY: Wetsanding paint chip repair - Bimmerfest - BMW Forums)





I'm worried it that in my case, it may be the clear coat (see attached image).




My question is- do you think this is repairable? I've tried using 2000 grit wet sandpaper and Meg's Rubbing Compound with a PC and it didn't work. Maybe I was applying it wrong?


The car is practically brand new and I have an appointment to have the entire door and surrounding rear panel/fender resprayed, but if I can get the halo out of there and the paint chip filled in using the method in the thread above, I'd be satisfied.


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Looks like the sanding has taken you through the top coat of clear. Did you or the detailer use a paint thickness gauge? 1200 grit is going to take a crapload of clear off in a hurry. I'd say you're gonna need that body shop appointment.

 

If the base coat is compromised, you will see color transfer, if you do (assuming it's not a single stage paint) then yes you have clear coat failure and will need a respray. Also, don't use that "detailer" again, that's some terrible wetsanding technique.

 

iinviktus -

I am sorry that this had to happen to your car. In the first Pic you posted, it is easy to see that the "repair" was way, way, higher than the sanded areas around. It really needed to be block-sanded down in just that round spot.

It is painfully obvious that the "Detailer" did not attempt to sand the area flat with a Block under the paper, and that is why the repair/s were never going to be level.
A simple spray of for example, a black lacquer from a distance to just allow black spots over the area to be laid down would have also helped serve as a "guide coat", to visually show where the high and low spots were in the repair. When all of the "guide coat was sanded off, chances are, the repair would have been sanded flat and even with the surrounding paintwork.

And, as has been already said above, a paint thickness meter was definitely needed to be used correctly to help understand what kind of thickness was there at the start, and used frequently to measure how much material was being removed.

Also concur, you need to allow a real Painter to fix this. He will probably do what I would do - take a air powered D/A and some 3m paper, completely sand this area down flat, feather it out, prime it if necessary, prepare the entire door panel appropriately to receive new layers of paint to correctly match the entire door and surrounding panels.

You will need to enlist the best possible shop to do this, and make sure they know that you absolutely want this door and all the surrounding panel color to match, repeat, match, perfectly. A good Painter like I was, will know how to tint up and down that color to make it perfectly match. Insist that the shop use the "Factory Pack" paint for this work, and if needed, tint up or down to get a perfect match.

You also need to ask them if they are going to "Blend" the paint into the surrounding panels, and if so, are they going to prepare the surrounding panels for the "Blend" so that this paint does not start to fail in a few years, etc.. Again, if they do not understand or refuse to talk about this, then they are probably not going to be as good as you would want on such a nice car.

Good luck with this I am again, sorry that you trusted someone who obviously does not understand proper paint and repair techniques.

Dan F

 

I pretty much gave up on doing paint chips this way. It still never comes out perfect or close to it and it's too risky sanding around the chip as you are thinning out hte clear coat layer. I just touch them up with no sanding.

 

iinviktus, it's a shame this had to happen to you. With all that has been said and posted, hopefully you will be able to have this situation rectified.

It's because of this type of situation that I am moving to an air brush touch up service come spring. The chip will be filled almost flat, then the touch up will be applied relatively thin, and finally, clear coat will be airbrushed and blended with the surrounding area. A very light wet sand and polish will complete the trick.

 

He did not use a guage, unfortunately for me.

Color transfer did occur :-/.

Thanks for the advice. The shop I'm going to take the car to is widely known for excellent paint work. He is going to sand and prime the entire door and rear fender to prepare it for paint (Standox). I've heard nothing but great things about them, but they do cost more.

Lesson learned... the hard way!

Thanks for your condolences, Joey et all. I guess it's better off this way in the end because the chip would have never been completely gone with any touch up service. Only a respray would make it go away completely, but that means messing with the factory paint on a practically new car. I'd rather not mess with paint in this new of condition, but I know that for myself personally, I couldn't stand to look at that chip every day.

I know that most will say that nothing is better than factory paint, but if the paint shop does an excellent job at color matching, blending and using high quality paint (Standox), should I be worried about issues in the future? I never keep cars more than 3-4 years, and I'm confident that the repaint won't fail within that time frame, but I still would not want the paint to have issues for the next owner.

Thanks again for everyone's responses. Truly appreciated!