Advice for newbie? Paint/Detail

[anmoonen]

Hello everyone,

Never posted here before, please be kind and don't get too technical on me!

My 2000 V6 convertible (black on black) has a lot of rock chips and bug damage on the front bumper and the hood. The rear bumper (which has been repainted at some point) paint has started to crack in concentric circles around the spot where I backed it into a U-Haul truck... don't ask how I managed to NOT see it! The hood is starting to look quite faded, especially right on the nose, above the little horsie.

I've been told that much of this damage can not be buffed out, and perhaps repainting is the way to go. Was advised to check out a place called One Day Paint (www.onedaypaint.com) but have not yet done so, other than looking at their website. Is anyone here familiar with this business?

I don't think I'd want to repaint the whole car, wouldn't it be better to just have the two bumpers repainted and maybe the hood? Or would you suggest that I just see first how much improvement there would be in simply having the car buffed/polished and take it from there?

My gut tells me it's better to leave the factory paint alone, and that repainting the whole car for a few problem areas is a really bad idea. Especially since the one area that WAS repainted (rear bumper) is doing that cracking thing.

I almost sold the car a few months ago, as I was getting frustrated with the repair bills. I don't use it much, I take public transportation to work. But I found myself getting teary-eyed at the idea of giving up my baby, so I decided to keep it. So now I want to try to keep it looking as nice as I can for as long as I can. I'm driving less than 5K a year with it, so I'm hoping to get another 10 years out of it.

Any advice? Thanks in advance.

 

[ScottM]

Welcome to Stangnet! Kick your shoes off and hang around for a while!

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that business. The one thing I can tell you is if you're interested in repainting, make sure it's done right. If you have to pay a little more to go to a reputible business, it would probably be worth it. That might be part of the reason your paint is cracking in the rear if it was done fairly inexpensively. Also, the fender bender might have weakend the paint causing it to crack as well.

The one thing I would be leary of when painting just parts of a car is if the areas around the parts you get painted are pretty chipped or faded at all, it's going to stand out even more next to the new paint.

I'll tell you, a professional detailer can work wonders with a polisher/buffer. It might be worth the 3 or 4 hundred dollars they would charge to see how much they can do with it rather than the $2000 plus to do a repaint. I don't think they would be able to do a tremendous amount with the rock chips, well, unless you get in to wet sanding which will get pricey, but a pro will definately be able to take out a lot if not all of the swirls and spiderwebs, and even do something with the dullness.

Do you have any professional detailers around you? I know a lot of them will give a free quote on what all they can do for you.

 

[anmoonen]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your reply. The repainting was done by the now-demised M2 Collision Care Center, and just for clarity's sake, the bumper was repainted before I backed it into that blasted U-Haul. Why did the U-Haul park in a compact space at Ralphs? And why did I not see it? We'll never know. The total bill was $1,200, which included taking a small dent out of the left rear fender, and replacing the brake light in the center of the trunk lid. The latter was done at my request, had nothing to do with the accident, the plastic had just gone bad. So I'm not sure if you would qualify that as inexpensive. M2 was where my insurance company told me to get it fixed.

The detail guy at the Ford dealer told me that the paint probably did crack because it was not original paint, according to him original paint would not behave in that way. The same guy said he would in fact be able to remove all of the spiderwebbing and swirls, just not the rock chips. I did not ask him about wetsanding. They mentioned colorsanding (I think?) at some point for one of the deeper scratches on one of my fenders. He guessed that he would be able to achieve about a 50% improvement in the appearance of the worst parts of my car, but said the nose really couldn't get much better just from buffing and polishing.

Now, I know what you're gonna say about asking the dealer about this... But I have a mechanic there whose judgment I trust (been talking to him directly, circumventing sharky service rep), and he's the one who took me to the detail guy. They offered to do what they could in terms of buffing and polishing for $125. This would not go through Ford dealer, they'd do it "on the side." The One Day Paint suggestion also came from them.

I'd love to take it to a pro like you say, but I haven't the slightest clue where to start. I like to go by reference on these kinds of things, and no one I know has been able to give even one recommendation as far as detailers go. I'm sure there must be many around, this is L.A. after all and people supposedly care about their wheels in this town! I would prefer to go that route rather than repainting, so thanks for confirming my instinct.

So let me rephrase my question: can anyone here recommend a good detailer in the greater L.A. area? Would be much obliged.

An

PS I forgot to say: I clayed the car myself and that right there took away a lot of the dullness on the hood. It has never been detailed by a professional. I probably managed to add a bunch of swirls in the process, but still, the pony shined like it hadn't in a looong time, so I don't regret doing that. Maybe if I just don't ever look at it in full sun, I will feel better! It looks pretty darn good in the shade. Heh heh.