Any car painters here?

[T2urtle]

So someone thought they would give my car a nice love tap while I was parked. Nothing serious, no insurance claim needed. But I have some questions on paint.

So I've had a friend at a small time body shop repaint my bumper last year. It was an average job but for the price I paid it was great. He did it in his paint booth and everything, not a hack job but maybe a rush job because it had to squeeze my car in along with others. But back on point, so that same bumper was hit today. It shows a lot of spider webbing from the stress of the impact and paint flaking off.

When my bumper was orginally hit, it looked more like a rub effect. Paint was removed and it's showed the black primer under,but it didn't have much as much of the spider webbing look and no paint ever flaked.

So I'm wondering if he used a cheaper paint or just a different kind of paint from OEM. If some paints are completely different then others. I'm not going to ask him because he might take it the wrong way. It's not that I'm unhappy I'm just wondering why the paint is reacting differently.

I have a graphite color Infiniti if it makes a difference. Wv3 paint code. And it was the same bumper as before, he just did a little smoothing and painting.

 

[calvie]

You said it was cheap paint job. It was probably one layer of paint instead of a couple of layers like the oem paint. You can see a lot of cars on the street with cracking paint, spider webs on the bumper. They are probably cheap repaints. Years ago I have a car that have cheap bumper repainted. A couple of bump and you can see the clearcoat cracking already. You get what you pay for.

 

[T2urtle]

When I said cheap job, I was talking price. It was a friend who works at a average body shop. I pulled the bumper off, he just painted it and I reinstalled it. It was done in a booth, maybe in between jobs or late night.

Overall I was very happy with the job. Just now after its been hit, I can see its not looking like normal. I'll post pix later.

Ah... so layers of paint can make a difference. I know nothing on painting, I don't have an eye for it. I can just see the obvious.

 

[Fenixgoon]

there's a guy do has a webpage on a $50 paint job for his entire car. it held up quite well as i recall. http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

 

[T2urtle]

^that's amazing for $50.

I'm not looking to repaint this or anything its something I can live with. It's a 10 year old car now. Just wondering why it's flaking.

 

[96Firebird]

It can also depend on how the car was hit. If it was a scrape (usually happens on corners of the bumper) the first time, meaning the other car was almost parallel when it hit, the paint won't spiderweb. If it is a direct hit (perpendicular), the paint will be stressed and spiderweb. If the bumper is plastic, it may have even deformed inward and popped back out.

 

[Pulsar]

^that's amazing for $50.

I'm not looking to repaint this or anything its something I can live with. It's a 10 year old car now. Just wondering why it's flaking.

Not amazing. You just need to know how to paint. 99% of people put it on way to thick. Many thin coats then sand and repeat.

 

[pcgeek11]

The bumper is plastic, it flexes when hit. I would guess that the bumper flexed a bit more this time than last, that is why it is spider webbing and flaking off.

 

[buddyholly1969]

Bumpers and flexible parts need a flex additive added to the paint or it will crack and spider web if struck. Lots of repaints just use the same paint for the entire car when the flexible parts need to be painted separately. Sounds like this was not done when the bumper was repainted.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Bumpers and flexible parts need a flex additive added to the paint or it will crack and spider web if struck. Lots of repaints just use the same paint for the entire car when the flexible parts need to be painted separately. Sounds like this was not done when the bumper was repainted.

+1 and single stage enamel. Hard and brittle

 

[inachu]

I did this as a teen in high school. It was super cool to learn but kinda sucked at the same time.

Reason why it suck was that we would take cars from the junk yard for free.
Fix them up and make them look brand new then we send them back to the junk yard.

#sad

 

[T2urtle]

Here are the pictures... kinda hard to show because of lighting and color of car.

My finger is pointing to what looks like point

Flaking off here

Spider webbing makes it all the way over here.