sk88erguy

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/58485/s4_and_jake_police.jpg"></center><p>
as everyone prolly knows from me bitching my roof and trunk are ****ed up.

i went down to the body shop that did my front end today to get some ideas of how i could make it cheaper, prep work and whatnot. and my questions are as follows.

1-the guy that works there thinks the car was painted cheaply and thats why my clear coat failed so badly. and also that long scratch on my passanger door he felt and with his nail made a small scratch and said its really soft compared to how it should be, so my question is how can i tell if its been painted, the whole car that is.
my idea with this, is if the car has a cheap as **** paint job on it why even paint the top good? why not wait, have it all stripped and do it right?

2-if it were your car what would you guys do as far as labor and how much would you pay to have it fixed, is it worth me paying a premium shop to do this right?

input on this is greatly appriciated guys, thanks.

tpierce

i thought my cq was bad. I've vowed to never buy another used black car, ever.
If i were you, wait and paint the entire car. I don't know much about body work, so i wouldn't attempt to do any or much of that. You can remove all the exterior lights, grill, mirriors, moldings, etc yourself. That is something that the shop will charge you for. If you plan on keeping the car, get the best paint job you can afford. I learned with my first car ('88 VW Fox), cheap paint jobs suck.

UrScubed

You see all the guys at dealer auctions wandering around with them- paint thickness is a pretty quick and simple way to tell whether or not the car has been painted.

As far as saving on labor, I'm doing a few things to save on mine:
1) Doing all disassembly/prep on replacement panels: I'm putting a new hood, trunk lid, and rear driver's door on my car. I've stripped all the ancillary parts (trim, wiring, etc.) off all of the panels so the shop can cut them in. Once they're cut in, I'll put them back on the car and align them myself.
2) Do as much diassembly/reassembly work as you're comfortable with. Relatively simple stuff like pulling bumpers &amp; trim can help because their guys don't have to try to figure out how to take your car apart.
3) Offer to help with masking.
All of the above are very time consuming and labor intensive (read: expensive) so the more you can do, the better the job is likely to come out and the cheaper it will be.

See the site below for a good step-by-step on a high quality paintjob- just masking time alone was 20 hours!<ul><li><a href="http://quattro.polter.net/">Project S4 to S6</a></li></ul>

sk88erguy

i dont know if id have a problem just painting the roof, and having the doors buffed because they arent bad minus the scratch in the passanger door. because at this shop at least, a paint job on everything minus the hood and front fenders would have to be more than i got the car for. and although it would be awesome i think its just too much money for my lifestyle... which sucks because the car feels like new besides the few issues i have with my shifter and the vibration at 35 MPH. i sure lucked out on that accident getting a new front end, anyone want to smash me hood and trunk for me?? hahaha

squidix9

don't do a partial job, you'll just regret it. Not only will the finish be different, so will the color. Color matching is hard at best.

Trim removal is something you can do to save a lot of money.

You get what you pay for, nuff said. You pay for an Earl Scheib paint job, you get an Earl Scheib paint job.

sk88erguy

tomorrow. and what i was hoping is to save some money and have a great looking car. My delema now is if i have a cheap paint job whats worth doing ya know. im going to try to find someone who can tell me for sure because thats really a key in my decision.

S4-Fireblade

"the guy that works there thinks the car was painted cheaply and thats why my clear coat failed so badly" = either the Hardener was not added to the clear coat or the clear coat + hardener were too solved with thinner. Whatever happened was really bad and the results are there!
Yf I was you, I would disassemble the car my self, prior to have it painted by someone else. That way the painter knows that you will notice his mistakes when you assemble the car.

sk88erguy

because if im possitive thats not original, im going to assume the whole car was painted. I cant think why it would ever need to be repainted on the entire car, but i guess it was. there are these weird "drops" in places, almost like bird ****, that are in the clear coat and thats why i thought it might of been somthing that got onto the car that did the damage. but because the door scratched so easily when he was looking at my 3 foot scratch im guessing the clearcoat on the doors isnt in the best shape and will fail soon as well, so i might as well just get the whole damn thing painted.

Twisted5000

There's a number of reasons why paint can fail, especially the old stuff. (Clear has come FAR from its original self)

...As for the car being painted or not, if the roof has been painted its VERY likely that the rest of the car has as well. No one just Paints the roof like they would a fender and a hood, and unless it got wacked in one of the pillars there would be no reason to. (At the most, it would usually just be blended into the roof)

One misconception you seem to have about painting the cars is that to be "done right" the paint would be stripped. If you were to go to a premium paint facility tomorrow, and pay the real money, they wouldn't strip that paint... they would sand it down smooth, add some mud as needed, and spray the thing.

Since it appears you don't know too much on the body-work end... and the paint is so rough, I would not recommend you doing the body work. Body-work isn't like mechanical work... things dont just "bolt" into place and fit or not. To get lines smooth, you need to know what you're looking, (and more importantly, feeling.)

You would spend HOURS doing one panel that would take a good bodyman 30 minutes to complete and it still wouldnt come out as well.

Because its the roof, if I were you, I'd just leave it there until you can afford some bodywork and paint. No one really looks at the roof. However, you should also understand that its quite unlikely that the rest of the car is going to "go bad" as well. When this kind of stuff happens it tends to be for a reason, and clear doesn't just "go bad" especially long term... so dont worry about that.

germantoy

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR and it is no where more prevalent than in the auto paint industry.