Closed door respray - cost?

[someguy360]

The clear coat over Sting red on my ute built late Aug '17 is so thin, I've buffed through it twice with minimal pressure on the driver's lower door and the tailgate. I'm convinced I could lean on the buff a lot harder on VE's.

Modern cars clear coat is getting thinner and thinner, while factory finishes are looking nicer due to better computerised painting, looks can be deceiving.

A mate of mine is a detailer who does corrections, coatings and PPF on new dealer delivered cars etc (for all the dealers asian, euro, exotic etc)

There’s now a handful (of very well known and expensive) makes that they won’t even touch straight from the manufacturer as the clear is too thin to work with.

Paint tech in the factories have changed in the last decade, the paint is now atomised before it leaves the guns in the robots and basically laid on as a very fine dust which is microns thin.

BMW was one of the first to adopt this new system of painting cars in about 2007 there’s some videos online of it in action and basically it uses as little material as physically possible per vehicle which saves BMW approx $37 per car which doesn’t seem like much but over 1,000,000 cars that’s a fortune. They couldn't care less that the paint jobs not going to be as durable, as long as it lasts the warranty period they've done their job.

Imagine spending $120,000 on a new pride and joy to be told the day after you took delivery no detailer will go anywhere near it because it’s got a paint job thinner than a sheet of paper.

 

[someguy360]

I've had panels painted and they've cost me $400 to $500 per panel. Not sub-standard either, very good job.

Unfortunately you can’t compare a door or a bonnet to a respray.

I get your logic you go if a door cost $500 then you just add $500 per additional panel on the car but it’s not quoted like that.

When you’ve got the whole car, you’ll spend a whole day properly masking the car, removing all the trim pieces and mouldings etc required to paint the panels. A few days repairing dings, not just bogging them up.

And a few days blocking the whole car back.

Then there’s the cost of materials and the level of time required to paint it of which metallics require a lot more effort than solid colours like black or white.

Also solid colours like white, red etc are single stage 2k paints where the clear and colour are just a single paint. Where as metallics require a base coat clear coat system meaning 3 times longer in the booth and double the materials. (This is why when you buff a white car or a red car etc you see the colour coming off in your buff pads)

When I resprayed the VR it took me a lot longer because I opted to go for a base coat white and 4 coats of clear where as the factory 2k white was a single stage. Because personally I prefer clear over base for longevity and shine and it doesn’t start to go chalky as it ages.

Then any painter doing a proper job (not an insurance job) will denib the job, wet sand the whole car back again (which is at least a day) and buff it so it’s perfect and not peely etc.

Then reassembly etc.

In SA at least I’ve not heard of a closed door job for under $10k since before Covid.

 

[daves8]

Cheers guys!

 

[phantom0817]

Modern cars clear coat is getting thinner and thinner, while factory finishes are looking nicer due to better computerised painting, looks can be deceiving.

A mate of mine is a detailer who does corrections, coatings and PPF on new dealer delivered cars etc (for all the dealers asian, euro, exotic etc)

There’s now a handful (of very well known and expensive) makes that they won’t even touch straight from the manufacturer as the clear is too thin to work with.

Paint tech in the factories have changed in the last decade, the paint is now atomised before it leaves the guns in the robots and basically laid on as a very fine dust which is microns thin.

BMW was one of the first to adopt this new system of painting cars in about 2007 there’s some videos online of it in action and basically it uses as little material as physically possible per vehicle which saves BMW approx $37 per car which doesn’t seem like much but over 1,000,000 cars that’s a fortune. They couldn't care less that the paint jobs not going to be as durable, as long as it lasts the warranty period they've done their job.

Imagine spending $120,000 on a new pride and joy to be told the day after you took delivery no detailer will go anywhere near it because it’s got a paint job thinner than a sheet of paper.

Ok I’ll bite. For a coating or PPF no buffing is necessary unless the paint needs correcting which should not be necessary on a new car.

There’s nothing wrong with paint that lasts only the warranty period- not much else lasts longer than that on a modern euro car anyway. And to last the warranty period it still needs to have complete integrity up until the end. Have you seen the paint work from the “good old days”? Cars from the 80s and 90s especially had horrible jobs- especially far east cars, not euro.

The electrostatic painting referred to above is fine if it provides complete coverage. The real concern you are raising is about the amount of clear coat, but is it done the same way?

By this logic if you get aftermarket paint job you should get 3-4 extra layers of clear done just so you can buff your way through them over the years. Does anyone do that? From my research previously it seems not.

I’ve been on many car forums over the years and I can assure you they all have the thinnest paint of all of them.

 

[panhead]

That is poor. I had my bonnet buffed on the VE ute as it had a few scratches. I buffed the tonnneau myself and not even close to rubbing through.

I prefer to buff my own cars and I've done a lot of them over the years.

I always put my Paint Thickness Meter over the vehicle before I start so I know what I have to work with.

When I checked my VF2 Redline Ute, I was shocked at how thin the paint was, I now can't remember the figures off the top of my head, but I did post about it at the time.

My Ute has never been buffed as I feel I have very little to work with, and when I do eventually get around to it, it'll take me a few days of real care so as I can be certain not to burn through.

One thing I do like to do is wet sand my cars to rid myself of the dreaded sh*t look of 'Orange Peel', (it's still a paint defect in my opinion), that's something I'll never be able to do with my Ute unless I have some more clear applied.



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[MrBags]

I’ve seen so many new cars delivered with swirls and marks that really should not be on a new car so I’m in the opposite camp and think (in general) all new cars really should get a correction and ceramic coating (not a dealer ceramic coating either).
Dealer wash methods are comparable to supermarket carpark wash mobs.

 

[panhead]

I’ve seen so many new cars delivered with swirls and marks that really should not be on a new car so I’m in the opposite camp and think (in general) all new cars really should get a correction and ceramic coating (not a dealer ceramic coating either).
Dealer wash methods are comparable to supermarket carpark wash mobs.

I'd rather do the correction myself but if not, I'd want a professional detailer to do the job and not someone who works for or with the dealer and is doing it as cheap as possible, which means I wouldn't want anyone I didn't know to touch it.

I'd don't like ceramic coats, so I'd definitely pass on that, I'm an a carnauba wax man and it's the only protective coating I like on my cars.





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[someguy360]

Ok I’ll bite. For a coating or PPF no buffing is necessary unless the paint needs correcting which should not be necessary on a new car.

Actually most factory paint jobs are pretty terrible when you start to look at them up close.

Generally before applying a coating or PPF you want to do a full correction on the car to remove any factory orange peel (some makes are worse than others) and also generally get rid of any marks from the factory protective wrapping from shipping and the very abusive pre-delivery car washes the dealers do etc.

Theres a reason when you take a brand new car in for a full PPF/ceramic coating package they have it for a few days not a few hours and usually costs $2000+

For example this is a Subaru BRZ on delivery day, you'd be absolutely moronic to put a coating straight over this without correction.

To get rid of orange peel is going to require a full day of wet sanding and compounding. My VE II Ute was super noticable on the very long flat rear 1/4 panels with factory peel, that took me 9 hours of wet sanding/compounding to get nice and flat.

I would never apply ceramic coating (a proper one) on a car that had orange peel, as the gloss and depth of the coating just brings the peel out more. It's the nature of factory paint jobs to have pretty bad peel as it's all off the gun/robot.

BMW/Subaru are the worst for it.

In my opinion showroom fresh paint jobs are about a 4/10 at best.

 

[Forg]

Am I the only one who’s completely not bothered in any way about orange peel to that degree?
I went many years thinking that was what it was intended to look like, due to all the top-end cars looking like that in the 70’s & 80’s (Bentleys, Rollses, S-Class Benzes et al).

 

[VS 5.0]

Gran Tourer used to deliberately paint to achieve orange peel.....coz factory restoration.