Advice on repair times

[jipsom]

My M12 has now been in the workshop for six weeks(insurance job on a pranged front end), four of which have been eaten up by the inept paintshop, who've had terrible difficulty matching the panels.
It's still not ready.
My patience has now ended. Does anybody know where I stand with regards to...I don't know, taking it somewhere else? compensation?
It's frustrating because it feels like all I can do is moan about it.

[AMG Merc]

Rich, a frustrating story!

What does the paint shop say - maybe they ARE competent but your paint was wrong (ie: colour mix, etc.) from new (have you or any other owners had any resprays done?)?

If you have had enough with them maybe suggest they put it back together as-is and let you walk away (FOC) and you go to another paint shop?

What colour is your car as some metallics are challenging (eg: Titanium for one)?

Good luck!

[matt_fp]

Rich,

Is this being dealt with via an insurance company or is the job being paid for directly to the bodyshop?

If the former then a strongly worded letter to the insurance company may do the trick, if the later then I'm afraid AMG Merc's suggestion is about the best bet.

Regs
Matt

[goodlife]

AMG Merc said:

What does the paint shop say - maybe they ARE competent but your paint was wrong (ie: colour mix, etc.) from new (have you or any other owners had any resprays done?)?

IIRC most decent modern paint shops have the new paint-match technology within them. This is the same concept within those TV adverts for interior colour-match paint "take in a colour you like and we create the exact same paint." It's done using spectrum analysis machines or something so no human intervention required. All good unless you have reflex paint of course!

If your repair shop is crap, phone the insurance company, complain as high as you can and don't back down. They'll get it moved somewhere competent.

[amg merc]

goodlife said:

IIRC most decent modern paint shops have the new paint-match technology within them. This is the same concept within those TV adverts for interior colour-match paint "take in a colour you like and we create the exact same paint." It's done using spectrum analysis machines or something so no human intervention required. All good unless you have reflex paint of course!

Hmmm, I would have agreed with you but... why, on one occasion, did the factory approved paint shop mis-match one of my panels and, on complaint, said it was the best they could do (since corrected)?!

[jipsom]

Thanks for the advice, guys. It is Titanium, but as you say AMG, they should be able to match the paint through spectrum analysis.
I've had a frank discussion with the garage and they have now generously offered to have the whole car respray - by someone else.
I think I'm satisfied with that. The garage has, otherwise, been extremely helpful; that's the only reason I've been patient so long.
Now to the colour. I'm thinking Satin Black, but Joust hates it. Hmm.

[MisterX]

jipsom said:

I'm thinking Satin Black.

Thought you said it was Satin Paintshop?

[Mr Noble]

If your thinkong about colours, may I suggest not taking any advice from Martin!!

How knows where you could end up


Would it not be a massive job to change the colour? Its one think respraying all the external pannels, but having to do all the door trim and recesses too is surely a much bigger job?

I resprayed my first car and remember wishing I had stuck to the same colour! (but there was a huge quantity of P38 involved which may have added to the grief)


I quite liked the Bling Bling Black that was on the golf on Pimp my Ride UK the other week. Black with a coloured metalit flek in it!

GN

[chillidog]

Write a letter and fax it to the failing company. Then you've got the written evidence which will make it easier to progress through the small claims court. The failing company will tend to take more notice of a written complaint because of the latter.
--
Richard

[V6GTO]

www.rage-extreme.com/

I dare you!

Martin.

[jipsom]

Ooh, tempting. But no - unless anyone has major technical/maintenance issues, I'm going satin, baby:

http://streetrodder.net/rodtrot/Billet_Proof_2003/7Th_BILLETPROOF_021.jpg



PS Cheers Richard. I may take your advice and get a fax over, just so this is on paper.

[mr2turbo300]

I had my front clam sprayed a month or so back and they got a perfect match first time. (I gave them the colur mix from the factory colour though).

A friend had a nightmare getting a silver Celica matched correctly. The insurance company had three different goes at two companies and in the end gave up and paid the money over for him to get it done himself (He did and made a profit).

I got speaking to the owner of the shop where I got mine sprayed, who spent ages explaining that differnt colors of paint had different properites because of the base materials were different. His opinion is that black is a brittle paint and will chip worse than other colors, so if you are going to go black be ready for the chips (mines black). (Red fades, and weird green colour become bearable after a few years Martin will be pleased to know :-)

[jipsom]

mr2turbo300 said:

if you are going to go black be ready for the chips

True, but Satin Black is much easier to touch up later on. In the long run, I think it should be easier to maintain. It will also look very original. My friend recently returned from a car show in America. He said that everything was bright and shiny and bling, except for one car that was satin black, and subsequently it looked incredible.

[chillidog]

mr2turbo300 said:

if you are going to go black be ready for the chips

I saw a black (not brand new) M400 recently and specifically went to look for the pebble dashed rear wheel arches only to find that they looked fine; much much better than on my viper steel grey paint job. I'd have thought that black would have faired worse but in this instance it plainly wasn't the case.
--
Richard

[mr2turbo300]

Mine's not bad on the rear arches, but before I had it sprayed the bit above the front splitter was in a really poor state.I think it was the most chipped car at Rockingham (that I saw anyway), and it had only done about 10K miles.
(Anyway it is lovely and black again now, for a few miles, and celebrating 1 year to the day I bought it.)

[jipsom]

[pic] www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=22-085012L&y=2005&m=07&t=jpg&rand=7381&srv=img1 [/pic]

It looks great.

[broad]

And useful for when you go to the shops - you can take a piece of chalk and write a list on it !!

[DanH]

Not sure about that paint. It might look like some idiots gone over it with a dulux roler

I realise having had viper stripes on my car, that I'm not commenting from a position of strength!

[domcross]

Reading this thread I'm starting to wonder whether this is something to do with the paint selection used by Noble (am I right in thinking that they're all sprayed in SA?)

Here's a factual account of my experience in the first 6 months... factual as the factory are doing all they can to resolve this but it's a little tedious to say the least:

Got the car at Christmas. Bubbles appeared under the paint on the roof and rear/front clams very soon afterwards. Car went back to factory to be re-sprayed. The job was done but with a noticably different tone of blue so I then had the roof and clams in the new light blue and the rest in the old blue. It went back again and they sprayed the rest of the car the new colour. It's now back again as they missed the area around the rear window and masked the non-visible areas off leaving them in the old blue (if you open the doors the sills and areas under the clam line are the original colour)

I stress, Simon and the Noble team are doing all they can to get this resolved once and for all but every new re-spray adds weight and the car's not in the colour I initially wanted.

These things happen, but I have to confess, I'm a little worried about the abilities of the selected paintshop.

I guess the only way of getting the whole job right is the dismantle the car and spray the bodywork before re-assembly? If it comes back wrong again this is the only option I can see... let's hope they get it right this time!

Dom.

[jipsom]

Best of luck Dom.

And to answer my other critics: chalk and Dulux finish are both acceptable risks when making one's car invisible to radar.