Car spray painted in our car park by accident!!

[Gio G]

So, some guys near our car park at work, started spray painting the side of their building.. Little did they know, it was quite a windy yesterday and they have managed to cover most of the cars in the car park, including mine..

The fine dots can only been seen when you get close up and they feel quite rough to the hand.. I have a far amount of wax on the car, therefore do you think it should wash straight off? I am not even sure if it was a water based paint, as it was for commercial buidling use..

I am also concerned that those who have never waxed their cars, might have a tougher job on cleaning the paint off...as it would bond straight to the paint work.. Trying to get the contractors to pay for the cars to be cleaned..

Any advice on how to approach cleaning it?

[Slothario]

Gio G said:

So, some guys near our car park at work, started spray painting the side of their building.. Little did they know, it was quite a windy yesterday and they have managed to cover most of the cars in the car park, including mine..

The fine dots can only been seen when you get close up and they feel quite rough to the hand.. I have a far amount of wax on the car, therefore do you think it should wash straight off? I am not even sure if it was a water based paint, as it was for commercial buidling use..

I am also concerned that those who have never waxed their cars, might have a tougher job on cleaning the paint off...as it would bond straight to the paint work.. Trying to get the contractors to pay for the cars to be cleaned..

Any advice on how to approach cleaning it?

Yeah. Don't.
Instead take it to the best bodyshop in town and obtain a written report and quotation for the assessment, removal, paint correction and/or repainting.
Then take lots of photographs of the area, the damage to the other cars as well as your own.
Yesterdays weather report would be useful too.
Visit your solicitor and have him prepare a letter to be sent to the company concerned, requesting the details of thier insurers also.
Good luck with it.

[KevF]

Same thing happened locally to me. A guy had some land and put a load of shipping containers on there and let them out for storage. He hired a painter to paint them all white to smarten them up. Problem was the painter decided to use a spray gun and ended up covering 50 odd cars with a fine mist of white machine enamel.

In the end, a company was called in to wash/ claybar then wax each car. Eventually they had 60 cars to do. Most of the people were happy (as can be expected) but a few wanted the cars machine polished afterwards.
The painters insurance covered the cost though....

[Gio G]

Thanks guys, they will have someone in tomorrow to clean the cars.. I will probably demand a clay and machine polish, if they don't get the paint out..

[KevF]

IIRC ....the paintwork wasnt the main problem but the paint that had got onto the rubber weatherstripping. I would try and get it done sooner rather than later to stop the sun baking the paint on too much...

[Gio G]

Well, it was a rubber based industrial paint that went on the cars.. A guy turned up today, trying to clean the cars, which frankly did not remove all the paint.. He was also using some sort of glue/tar remover, which I did not like the look of...so avioded that.. Looks like it will be an insurance job....

[Slothario]

Gio G said:

Well, it was a rubber based industrial paint that went on the cars.. A guy turned up today, trying to clean the cars, which frankly did not remove all the paint.. He was also using some sort of glue/tar remover, which I did not like the look of...so avioded that.. Looks like it will be an insurance job....

Slothario said:

Gio G said:

So, some guys near our car park at work, started spray painting the side of their building.. Little did they know, it was quite a windy yesterday and they have managed to cover most of the cars in the car park, including mine..

The fine dots can only been seen when you get close up and they feel quite rough to the hand.. I have a far amount of wax on the car, therefore do you think it should wash straight off? I am not even sure if it was a water based paint, as it was for commercial buidling use..

I am also concerned that those who have never waxed their cars, might have a tougher job on cleaning the paint off...as it would bond straight to the paint work.. Trying to get the contractors to pay for the cars to be cleaned..

Any advice on how to approach cleaning it?

Yeah. Don't.
Instead take it to the best bodyshop in town and obtain a written report and quotation for the assessment, removal, paint correction and/or repainting.
Then take lots of photographs of the area, the damage to the other cars as well as your own.
Yesterdays weather report would be useful too.
Visit your solicitor and have him prepare a letter to be sent to the company concerned, requesting the details of thier insurers also.
Good luck with it.

HTH.....

[Digby]

Exactly the same thing happend to my parents new car back in the 90's.They were told the car would be resprayed and all costs covered, but my Dad wasn't happy about this.In his eyes, a resprayed new car to the trained eye would not be as sellable as an original one, so they ended up replacing the car for a brand new one! It also had a few extras that their original car didn't have, so they were quite chuffed in the end