Paint advise (sorry for the essay!) So Ive had an ongoing issue with my car for the past 2 1/2 years. In the summer of 2013 I have my VW Lupo repsrayed by a garage in Birmingham (theyve done other work for me on other cars, so I was happy to trust them with my pride and joy). It was a fairly simple respray as I just wanted to keep the original Candy White colour, rather than a colour change. After receiving the vehicle back at the end of July 2013, there was no issues with the paint in general, and I was happy. However, towards the end of the year I started to notice bubbles appearing all over my car (micro blisters). I immediately contacted the body shop and after a great amount of deliberation, my car was eventually resprayed again and I received in back in time for Edition 38s main show in 2014. Once again, a few months later I started to notice the same small bubbles appearing all over my car (this time however only on the surfaces which are horizontal, i.e. roof, bonnet, top of my bumper and the top of my quarter panels). Again, I immediately contacted the body shop, but obviously I do not want them to paint the car again in fear of the same issue occurring again (and me missing ANOTHER show season). Due to me wanting a refund, the body shop has had to go through their normal proceedings and have sent a forensic engineer out to assess my car (who in my opinion was a 90 year old guy who seemed to have little knowledge about paint). He has now compiled a report saying that Whilst I inspected the vehicle I told the client that the damage caused was not in my opinion caused by water contamination but was solvent pop caused by covering the vehicle thus trapping the solvents in the lacquer coat. More interestingly, My suggestions were that the vehicle be returned Peggs Accident Repair Centre where they would rebake the vehicle so the solvent pop could be fully cured. Now I have spoken to a few friends who paint, and they all think that rebaking the car again will in no way solve the issue - I just wanted to confirm this with some of the experts on here so that I can argue my case. Also, is this actually solvent pop, or is it micro blisters? From what I have seen, solvent pop normally is indents, whereas mine are small bubbles. Also, as well as the bubbles, I have noticed surface rust on my sills and the bottoms of the doors which I pointed out to the guy (this car has only been driven 3 times since the respray, approx. 200 miles, and it is never covered, plus only ever been washed with PH neutral shampoo) but according to the report a very light rust mark was also evident although minute to the driver’s door on the bottom edge, I must say that this also could be due to any number of causes that could not be attributed to the painting process - surely surface rust on brand new paint is due to a fault in the painting process? And the body shop should be liable to fix the issue? Also, the engineer has advised me that I would not be able to take this to court as I have no proof that this isn’t my fault...? I dont see how that is true. Any help would be gladly appreciated. I really want to get my car sorted out before UD - dont want to miss any more shows...
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:03:03 +0000