Need4Camaro

iTrader: (1)

I'm no paint expert, and most of the chips are on the front flaring.

The reason I noted 3 to 6 months was because I started noticing them 3 months after the job was completed last December, at first ignoring them but they gradually grew worse and worse and worse.

Story behind it was this, my car came with an aftermarket body kit from the dealer I bought it from but the kit was urathaned to the body of the car and whoever installed it cut off the rocker panels for some dumb reason, needless to say no more than a year of driving it they started peeling away from the car and looked absolutely horrible plus some parts and panels were beginning to sag. At that time I had a choice to give up on the car (needed alot of work) or just bite the bullet and make lemons into lemonade. I bit the bullet and $3k later I ended up having all of the flarings fiberglassed onto the car as the rocker panel damage was irreversible. Looks MUCH better than before and I'm not really complaining because this was really a job that should have cost closer to $5k and I got a decent deal.

Only thing is, the paint only at the front of the car is just chipping and chipping. Im not sure why. I've had cars with ground effects before and know they're noctorious for taking alot of paint damage but I havent had any degrade so rapidly before. This is degrading very rapid. I took it back to the body shop who did the work, they blamed it on "bug damage" which, I don't really buy for several reasons.

#1 I wash the car twice a week
#2 This car was no longer my Daily Driver starting February and the body work was only completed late December
#3 Even during the times I did drive it, it was winter - No bugs... - only early spring did I notice the damage, so is that to say as soon as a bug hits my car I'm going to lose paint?
#4 I know these cars are low and suspectable to rock chips and paint degradation in the front but even in my previous F-Bodies, I've gotten scratches and scars but I havent chipped up the whole bumper in 6 months.

I mean, I could be wrong...Im only here asking for your opinions.

Pictures are mostly of the flaring, but the bumper also has these chips all over it especially near the red/white/blue chevy emblem





thanks.

jlcustomz

Lack of resistance to chipping mostly comes from poor adhesion. Comes from poor prep and or poor materials.

If I were doing it myself, I'd sand back down to bare fiberglass, spray a few coats of SPI epoxy, then a few coats of either a good 2k primer or polyester primer surfacer, block sand it down as needed, then a thinned down coat of SPI epoxy as a sealer coat just before actual paint.
Parts like a fiberglass front spoiler need all the help they can get to take a beating. Yours also would benefit from some tedious block sanding work , which most aftermarket fiberglass parts need to look proper.

Both epoxy primer & polyester primer surfacers such as evercoat g-2 can add some toughness under the paint, eliminating the weak links you have now.

deebee

Need4Camaro, if that were my car I would take it to another bodyshop and see what they say. Several things could be going on here.

Your car may have been repainted prior to this paint job and the old paint job is peeling/chipping.

The sealer may be peeling from the primer.

The basecoat may be peeling/delaminating from the sealer.

They may just be legit chips. Nothing can duplicate the durability of a factory paint job. I have found that repainted cars are either more brittle than a factory paint job, or a bit softer - no happy medium.

If you don't mind taking a chance, pick away at a chip and see if it starts flaking even more. If the paint is sticking and doesn't flake off with your fingernail, then I would say it is chips. If it starts flaking off, I would look at it being that it is plain old peeling. But it is hard to tell if it is the basecoat peeling or sealer peeling off the primer or paint underneath it. When I worked in the industry I have seen cars so poorly prepped that you could literally blow the entire paint job off the car with compressed air. It would come off in sheets.

Another suggestions would be to try find what kind of paint they used and see if you can get a paint rep for the paint company to look at it. I have worked with a lot of them in the past and these guys are really, really smart. Hopefully if you can go this route their opinion would be unbiased and honest.

Good luck! Wouldn't rule out bugs doing that but not that badly. That is a lot of chipping and my experience is they will usually stain/etch paint before they chip them. It is common sense - a bug is softer than that paint that is on the car. At least the bugs up here are.

EDIT: Another thing that could be a problem is if the wrong speed hardner or thinner was used and the paint didn't cure properly. This can create an adhesion/delaminating problem as well. Also if the primer wasn't tacked off properly before sealer, dust in the sand scratches can cause delamination....so many things.

MY_2K_Z

iTrader: (1)

That looks like very low quality work. The body work is very wavy and you can see how thin the clear is. I definitely wouldn't go there again.

Need4Camaro

iTrader: (1)

Think I should have them pay for the next paint job?

deebee

Need4Camaro, take it to another bodyshop and see what they say. A reputable one will give you a free, honest, unbiased opinion. I wouldn't even tell them where you got it done, or even how long ago. Just ask what they think is causing the chips.

If you can get ahold of a paint rep , try that too. It is too hard to tell from pictures if they are actual chips, or the paint is peeling or delaminating.

I bet they don't warranty rock chips. Having said that, any shop I worked in did to a point. We wanted our customers coming back when they needed more work, not going somewhere else because we pi**ed them off.

I am not saying your paint is peeling, but it is really easy for a shop to say it is caused by rock chips or bugs to avoid having to repaint it.

OVRKILL

Getting a shop to repaint for "chips" would be like getting a tire company to replace 60,000mi tire that was done at 55.

Advice here as suggested would be to find another shop, research materials with durability and do it over. Lessons learned....