New paint looks like crap what would you do?

Saw those pics, how do you just not :ball:

Hang tough, you have plenty of support here! :TU:

 

If the guy has no interest in fixing his mess then I would make a nice poster naming who did the chrome, who did the interior, and WHO DID THE PAINT. Take your car to a few car shows and display your poster. You have seen Mr. Camaro at a show already so he may see your display along with everyone else. What can he do? You are not doing anything that is malicious just taking pride in your car. Word of mouth is the best advertising.

 

Thanks again guys as far as me picking the car up it did not look this way the day I picked it up. This has all happened within a week of him painting it and it was in the sun 2 of those days and sat in my garage uncovered the rest of the time.​

 

Oh man I went through the same thing in Miami in 92 when I had my 72 stage 1 painted by a "great" body shop.

Find a lawyer spend the money and sue him for everything it will take to fix it including the legal fees. Do not let him get away with this.

I brought my acid dipped, filled and blocked body to my painter in 92. All he had to do was prime, prep and shoot. I found out he farmed out my $4000.00 paint job to some kid for $600.00 who dropped my stage hood on its nose and just bondo'd the crushed point. The bondo fell off the first time I closed the hood.

We both threatened each other, he pulled gun and I went to my truck and got my gun before the brother stepped between us and promised to make it right. Everone was flying out of the shop when the guns came out. It was fixing to get ugly Ended up getting most of what I paid for before they abandoned the facility. I knew something was up, stopped by every day and one day found the place closed with my stage sitting out (glad I took all the trim and chrome when we had the argument). I hurried back with my trailer and I got my car back bcause they left it out but they took a guy's 69 ZL-1 Corvette and anothers Testarossa Ferrari when they skipped. I just had to rub it out myself and it looked great.

Moral of the story. Never bring a gun when you're picking up your car.

Don't let them get away with it.

Mikey

 

Rule Number One with body shops; - unless they like your car, they'll do a crappy job. Buicks are generally unloved; - he'll do a stellar job on a Camaro but to most people a Buick is just some granny car with pretentions. You'd be surprised how many of those idiots actually think that way. Camaros get prizes at general car shows, Buicks get ignored. Where would you want your best work displayed?
Rule Number Two; - if the body shops says "I'm not going to make a dime on this job, and it'll take a year", fall back on Rule Number One because it now applies. You're going to get crap, regardless of what you are quoted or have to pay.
Rule Number Three: The original bodyshop that goofed your car will never fix the car to your satisfaction because they now really hate you and blame the whole thing on you and the pile of crap you brought them in the first place. They are not miracle workers, it now becomes your problem because you hid crappy body work on them that they were expected to rework and they certainly won't work miracles on a re-work job. You can see where this is going; - you're better off finding another shop that will scrape that crap off and start over again. No amount of buffing will remove dryly applied or crazed and cracked paint.
Rule Number Four: Never, ever, pay a bodyshop more than 40% upfront for a job. The more you pay them upfront, the longer the job takes, because they have your money, and they aren't hungry to get paid. Running a bodyshop that does restorations is an expensive venture particularly when supplies need to be purchased and payrolls have to be met before the job even starts. They have to pay some semi-skilled clown to do all the back-breaking prep work on your car, and time is money particularly at a $100 shop rate. Pay enough to show good faith, set terms of completion and delivery down on paper in the contract, and then hold them to it.

I'm sorry, I've had such wonderful experiences with bodyshops and body men that for some funny reason I just can't trust them anymore.

What they did to your car was not even remotely excusable; - it was downright vandalism. I would go ballistic with these people, and there would be lawsuits threatened. Maybe get the DEA involved too, because for any self respecting body man to claim he wasn't stoned or drunk out of his mind when he applied that paint has to be lying.

Unfortunately, like some of us who have been forced to learn how to do work like this on our own because we couldn't trust someone who was supposed to be a professional, you've learned an expensive lesson.

 

Sorry to repeat, but I've gotta chime in. I took my Regal to a "friend of a friend" that owned a body shop- he looked over my car, which was extremely clean, and said he'd shoot it for 4k$ cash. I gave him 2k down and told him the rest would be paid on completion. Long story short- he took my car apart & demanded more $$ for "hidden damage" - there was none. He finally finished my "show quality" job for an extra grand, and held my ttops hostage until i paid. I had to have the spoiler repainted cause you could see that it had not been prepped and showed chips, and after I got the car back i found the paint so thin on the lower passenger fender that I had to pay s/o else to repaint it. I've got a 5k$ 10 footer. He's out of business. Oh, and before he folded, he sent a nice 73 regal I traded the go between to, to the junks cause "i screwed him".:af:
Karmas a bitch. your guy will get his come uppance. Take him to small claims court- thats good for up to 5K$. Take lots of pics and drive your car on court day & offer to show it to the judge- youll win. Oh, and if you can- get pics of the camaro for comparison. Let him talk his way out of that.:beer
Robert

 

As I was looking through the pics, this same very thought was going through my mind.

DUDE, not to beat the dead horse, but HOW in the H.! did you pay this shop in full for that work. I am floored!!!!

The only thing on my project I'm worried about is finding a good shop to do the paint and body work.

You definitely have GOT to sue that A-hole. I've seen better work from Tio Pepe here locally in Hialeah.

I feel for ya man, and hope it works out. You need to get 100% of your money back, plus the cost of soda blasting that car back down to bare metal!!! YOU NEED TO ASK for that from him, if he doesn't give it to you peacefully, SUE!!!!!!

 

Josh,

I am so sorry!! I wanted to see pictures, but not like this. I know how much this car means to you. Anything I can do give me a call.

Ricky

 

All you body shop slammers need to chill out...... There are shops that do a fantastic job. The big problem is there are as many crappy places to take a car. Im not cheap but my work is far superior than the above job. To me it easier to do it to the best of my ability the first time.

This car had a chemist mixing paint...he must have used several different combos of paints primers and sealers and now look his job is crap. I ONLY paint with one product PPG screw the rest. Compare what I do to anywhere in town and in the end my jobs will be a bargain.....

 

Whoa- slow down!
I don't think we were slamming ALL body shops- this was a post about a horror story & we were all sharing our woes. If the post would have been opposite and the op was raving about his job, i'm sure there would have been commeasurate stories about good jobs. Of course there are folks like yourself that do an honest job for an honest price- i've bought several odds & ends from you & was always happy in the dealings.:TU: If there were no "good guys" out there, we'd all be driving POS'S.:beer
Robert

 

Hey Mike don't think myself or anybody else is bashing on body shops. Trust me I have seen several cars in are area from several shops and there are some great and others not so great. I'm not even bashing the guy that painted my car I just want my car to look like he said it would and like I know he can do. I think there are several qualified shops in are area but it's the one that stand behind there work that raise above the rest. ​

 

Well, I was bashing bodyshops, I so far haven't met a reputable one here in the Edmonton area in the 25 years or so that I've been running vintage Buicks. All of the shops that I've either had work done at, or checked out upon recommendations of others have all turned out to be rather shady and in just about all cases I've either left with a car that looks like it was painted in someone's garage under a blacklight or spent the next 6 months going back for re-work and rust repair. They either promise the moon and don't deliver, or they deliver crap because they put their apprentice on it or farmed the job out to a motivated hobbyist in his garage. With my last Wildcat, one shop owner looked at the car and basically told me that I wouldn't like the outcome and that I couldn't afford the job, this on an original body that was showing some rust in the rear quarters. And no, these weren't cheap low budget job requests either, I was prepared to spend into the 5 figures on just paint. So when I took the car to the high-end shop, the owner there told me that I had a parts car and he wasn't about to waste my time or his, considering he thought a resto job on it would cost minimum of 70K. Here again, this was on a 100,000 mile original car with worn paint and a bit of rust. And yes, I could very well imagine what was underneath the quarters, I've taken enough of them apart.

In fact most bodyshops here in Edmonton will not do any work on a vintage car, because it isn't component replacement and they would actually have to spend some time on the car. It's surprising that out of a list of 22 bodyshops in this area that I canvassed to do that car, only one said he'd take it on, and that it would be at least a year in the making and chances are it was going to be farmed out to someone's garage. The rest flat out refused to even look at the car unless it was an insurance claim. Says something for the integrity of the industry.

Maybe we should do a poll and see how many reputable bodymen there are out there, I'm sure there are a few, there has to be. I just haven't met any. To those that are honest and do good work, my hat goes off to you, and someday I hope to meet you and do some business, because a bodyman I ain't, and I'm having a h--l of a time learning how to do it.

Sorry to hijack the thread...rant over.:rant:

 

The court of public opinion is a strong one. I like your angle Joe. When a local bodyshop ripped me off on an insurance job on the wife's driver (didn't replace a roof panel-just filled and painted it) I stood at the corner with a poster that said "Ripped off by Ra_ _ _'s" I know it got his attention because he sent the sheriff. A little risky since Ra_ _ _'s does all the Sheriff department's collision work. After a brief explaination, the Deputy said I was within my rights. Ra_ _ _'s quickly changed their mind about paying for another shop and a rental car as well.

The fact is most body shop operations are border line criminal in nature. The few honest ones that quote what should be charged get laughed out of business. 5k sounds like a lot but you could easily spend 1k in materials. That leaves 4k. Say there is a $45/hr shop rate. That only leaves 88 hours to spend on labor. That is very little time to do any paint removal, rust repair, panel alignment, filler work, prime, block, reprime, block, prep, base, clear, color sand, and buff. I know I've got 88 hours just in the three primings & two blockings of my convertible and it probably could have used a third.

This is just my opinion, but bodywork is very hard labor. I think some guys start out with good intentions but are quickly changed by the harsh reality of how difficult and time consuming the tasks really are. That's one reason you see so much "sub" contracting in these horror stories, or in this case a newbie in action. As much as I enjoy watching those TV shows where they magically turn a car from a turd to something that looks good on TV, I know there is plenty of man hours there that you don't see or corners have been cut.

 

I read an article a while back where they talked about the cars from Pimp My Ride. They said some of the cars were worse off afterwards than they were before they started, and some started to rust through the quick-fix body work after a couple months. It went on to say that the owners were better off selling the cars as TV novelties than trying to reliably use them, and that they may have looked better on camera, but the work did not look that good up close and in person.

 

I agree with Mike about the "chemist" mixing the materials that went on that car.
I have no problem myself, and haven't had a problem mixing products to complete a job. I'm not saying I use PPG activator in Dupont primer, that is a no-no.
But,
If I use PPG activated PPG primer, then later paint the car with Dupont activated Dupont paint, it's not a problem if the materials are properly mixed and "cured"......In most cases,not alway's. Not ideal to most pro's either.

I remember a car I was doing one time, and I made a mistake like the above description. I had a self etching primer with activator, and I had a 2K high build primer for block sanding/prepping.
I had etch primed the car, and blocked it with 320 grit, and I was mixing the 2K primer, and I accidentally used the activator from the etch prime.
Started spraying first coat of primer, and had problem with the gun(so I thought). I was waiting for the first coat of primer to flash, and while waiting I thought it looked spltochy, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it until I tried to spray the second coat and nothing but glob's/chunks came out of the gun.
I opened tha can of the gun to find what looked like grey cottage cheese setting up in my nice paint gun.
Long story short, my paint gun never worked right after that, the primer on the car didn't fully cure, it cracked and seperated like the photo's of the red convertible above, and I had to strip the car back to bare metal and start over.

I also saw a time when a guy I know was trying to do a "quickie" on a guy's old beater wood hauler/plow truck. He sanded the truck down, and was going to do a "wet-on-wet" paint job start to finish in one day.
"wet-on-wet" means that you are going to spray primer, let it flash, spray sealer, let it flash, spray base coat,let it flash, then load the clear over it all.
Long story short, it looked EXACTLY like the red convert above, and kept getting worse as time went by, probably due to trapped solvents trying to cure that are trapped under top coats.

I feel for you, but that car is going to HAVE to go back to bare metal. The biggest shame is that the car is all back together, and is going to have to be taken all apart again:blast: :af:

 

I'm not going to stand up for ANY Body Shop that pull's this kind of crap.
But,
Most are called "collision" shop's, and that is what they are geared to do.........Fix cars(read 2003 Camry) that hit a Deer, or another car.

"Collision" shops are dictated by the INS companies, and they have the good old Mitchell Manual that tells everybody how much "time" they get to replace the fender on the 2003 Camry that hit a Deer.

Almost all Bodymen and Painters work on Commission(Which is the worst thing to ever happen to avg Joe consumer) It works out great for the young motivated bodyman, because the Mitchell Manual says he get's 2.0 hrs to remove crunched fender, 1.5 hrs to prep & prime,1.5hrs to prep for paint,and another 2.0hrs to install, for a grand total of 7hrsX $50/hr=$350
Now, let's say he does all this in 5hrs, he gets paid for 7hrs of work, he did this between 7am-noon,and still has the rest of the day to start on the next job he will make good time on.He could get paid for 10-11hrs work during an 8 hr day.(To be fair to bodymen, the Mitchell manual can screw you as well, and only pay 5 hrs for something that takes 7hrs,I know)

Point is, collision shops aren't geared for restoration,mainly because they want to be paid 7hrs for 5hrs work,which they aren't going to get on some old junk car(their view)
So it get's labled "fill in work", and when a bodyman gets done doing the Camry fender at noon, if he has nothing lined up for the rest of the day, he HAS to do the "fill in" work, that doesn't pay, on the junk old car.
Poor attitude=poor work/results.
This is why you will hear a collision shop say when quoting..."If we charge you what it would cost so we can make money,you couldn't afford it" So you are shamed into taking their "fill-in" offer that *might* get done in a year, if we have time to fit it in.:af:
This is why it's so hard(and expensive) to get an older car painted. Insurance companies/commission has ruined it for everyone. I have a friend that is a bodyman on commission, and he always loves to review his paycheck at the end of the week and figure he made $82/hr,96/hr, whatever dollar an hour by "beating" the Mitchell Manual time:Smarty: :moonu:

 

Very well said Tom thanks:TU: THIS shop (mine) is set up for collision and is set up for restoration. I get tired of being lumped together with shops that do crappy work because they/ WE are not all the same. They are crappy because people allow then to do crappy work and noone holds them to the carpet. My attitude towards even the smallest job is and always will be "if I wouldnt accept it for the money paid how can I expect others to accept it?" This guy needs to either refund ALL of the cash or strip the car and do it correctly to prove his abilities or he is always going to be mud. Personally I would have never even let the customer see a car if it did that. I would have been stripping it down and redoing it without hesitation. He just showed his moral standards by doing that.

But looking at the pictures again I can say also the car will need totally stripped to bare metal to be anything. The hood to fender thing can be fixed by raising the fender , (it would appear that the fender is an NOS one with that issue of where it was welded) next is the hood along the front edge. That is obvious that the guy never once test fit the molding while straightening the hood. I could go on but its not pretty.

 

Brian Albrecht said it, and he's right. Larry's '88 Riviera is living proof that some people have pride in their workmanship. That's one nice paint job, fella.

My wife wrecked her van a couple of months ago. It cost me $500 for the deductible and $1600 to the shop, with some used parts that were good enough for them- and they were pretty particular, because I can tell you that thing looks better that when we bought it 10+ years ago- where they touched it.

I live in the litigation state; I think there are a lot of thieves in every industry, and I don't like suing, I've only had to do it once in 58 years of living. But if this guy ain't going to do it right, sue him for all costs. Let me leave you with one thought- if you think he's pissed about having to do it again, get the money and take it elsewhere. I personally have no trust in that kind of operation and would expect something else would be done that you don't see that will surface later, and can't prove. Call me paranoid, you may be right, but I've seldom been seriously burned.