[flash]

yup - i keep meaning to buy another one, as i somehow lost mine in the move many years ago - it came in very handy when i had my shop, as i was buying and selling a lot of cars - they aren't very expensive (about $400)

i should have had one before i bought the SL550 - as it turns out, the wife parked it into a piece of angle iron in a parking garage, and needs the bumper cover reworked - guess what? yup - it had already been done before, even though there was no record anywhere, and we had an affidavit from the original owner

you just never know

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[link517]

+1 to what flash said before about body shops and clear coat
I had my front bumper resprayed because of rock chips and they told me the same thing about using clear coat.

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[chudson]

Flash most corect. Clear is a body shops friend. It gets sprayed over most repair work even when there was no clear to begin with. I guess it's personal preference but I prefer clear to single stage as long as the whole car is cleared.

The paint meter I carry is the Elcometer - this brand is recognized as the industry standard. 895. for the unit that will measure coatings over ferrous / non ferrous metals. 90 + percent of the dealers at the auction have this model. Nothing has been develpoed as of yet to measure paint over plastic.

I measure paint every week. Factory robotic jobs can be so perfect there will be maybe .5 to 1.0 mil variation on the entire car. Our loves - not so much. All hand painted cars have a lot of variation. I know my car is all original coating and it measures from 4.5 to 9.5. Any dealer or body shop who didn't know that 968s were painted by hand at the factory would swear it had been repainted. A paint meter is a tool an expert uses along with his eyes and hands (feeling for tape lines / overspray inside door jams and rough edges on hoods / door panels / etc.) to determine if a car has been refinished. Like flash, I know how to interpret what it is saying. Don't rush over to your local body shop and have someone (reading the meter only) break your heart.

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[chudson]

I forgot to mention - different thickness for single stage vs clear? 1 - 2 coats of primer plus 3 - 4 coats of color compared to 1 - 2 coats of primer plus 1 - 2 coats of color under 1 - 2 coats of clear. Virtually no thickness difference when done.

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[rxter]

A respray is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as its been done well a car with a freshly painted panel can save you the heartache of having to open your own wallet. What is the real value of "all original paint" on one of these non-collector cars, after all?

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[chudson]

Good point and correct, we are talking about cars important to us and not necessarily the collector car market but in the opinion of this life long car enthusiast and dealer here's the deal.

There is no adhesion quality like what the factory is capable of - their products will almost stick to air and spray boot enviroments are darn near sterile

There are products sprayed in Germany that the feds won't allow here

Something can be restored a hunderd times, but it's original only once

If a section or panel is refinished there can be matching issues and /or it will age / fade differentlly than its surroundings

Why was the section or panel refinished? Repair to just a small scratch or major damage? Is there exposed metal or rust that wasn't properly treated or corrected? Some one else may have opened their wallet for this repair, but if we own the car long term and it wasn't repaired correctly we may one day open even wider to correct!

As a dealer I (we) always devalue a car if it has been refinished. The more valuable or newer the car the more the devaluation. Our cars? Opinions vary. If the job is done correctly not so much. The longer a car is in service the more likely it will require repair or painting

So if you have an all original beautiful paint finish do your best to keep it that way

-vs-

A paint expert with tons of experience and talent can lay down a paint job that is mind blowing.

Today's repairs are done with products that far exceed the quality of years ago.

Today's products require training before application - once you just watched a guy paint then tried for yourself - trial and error training

There are obviously more cons than pros, but it boils down to this. IF you have to refinish anything on your love stay away from MOST production type body shops as they are forced by insurance companies into doing repairs as quickly as possible. Find yourself a custom shop and be prepared to come out of pocket more than the insurance estimate (if there is one involved) and describe in detail what you expect from them to include not only the quality of the finished product but what they can do to hide (from a trained eye) the fact that repair has been done.

I purchased my car with all original paint but horrible acid rain damage. I trailered it to the best buffing guy I know. You can still see pits in the clear, but it now looks almost new and I wouldn't repaint it if it was free.
Sorry for the novel - was hard to say in two sentences

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[Tomikaze]

Chudson,
What dealer do you work for?

-Tomikaze

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[chudson]

I am an independant. Have been in the automotive sales and service industry 40 years - self employed for 33 of those. My service facility is in the coastal region of SC; my lot is in the mid section of the state.

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[Tomikaze]

Have some friends in Summerville. They want us to move down there. I work at a Volvo dealer in Maine. I would love to work for Volvo of Charleston or that 7 franchise compound across the street from them.

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[chudson]

I understand and agree it's an awesome place to live and work. The service manager at Volvo is a friend - we actually service his son's Nissan. The shop foreman for the Porsche shop at the 7 franchise store is a former employee and great friend. I have connections everywhere if you are serious about making a move. Let me know through PM if I can help.

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[rxter]

Points well taken.

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[marazas]

When I had 944 guards red it did not have any clear coat - when polishing I used to get red color on polishing pads. Strange as my black 968 does not leave any color on the polishing pads.

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[Norskiepete]

'93 Guards Red... single stage (no clear coat). They polish up like nobody's business! But you have to be careful on edges and corners... you can polish down too far.

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[IndischRot968]

Ditto. '94 Guards Red, no clear coat.

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[Nenehubert]

No clear coat on 94' Guards Red either. However, the front bumper does have clear on it, so I assume it has been resprayed in the past.

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[jg968]

The front rotors that were recently replaced (by the previous owner) have surface rust on the inner hub. After you spend time cleaning your wheels and put them back on the car, you see the rust and it just looks bad. Anyone ever try to clean and paint that portion of the rotor hub?



Jerry

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[chudson]

The factory rotors and factory relacements have a grey coating that prevents this but they cost more than the generics (my rotors are original and still no rust but it is a southern car - don't know how well they hold up in snow/salt).



I've painted rotor centers but as with any paint or coating it needs to be applied over a prepared surface. I blast the rotors centers down to what the blasting guys call "white metal" (obviously this requires a bead or sand blaster) and then apply my coating. Make sure you DO NOT COAT the area where the pads will touch. Even this won't last forever, as eventually moisture manages to find it's way through rattle-can paint.



I'm preparing to hang some two piece rotors on the front of my car and they are going to get powder coated.

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[Byte]

My black coupe isn't clear coated. What are the general thoughts on clear good/not good. I'm going to repaint and was thinking of adding clear coat. The paint now seems to scratch extremely easy.

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[chudson]

Most body / paint shops today are going to insist on clear coat repaint. I personally prefer it - others may not

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[DaveN]

jg968 - a little of topic, well a whole lot but here is my answer to the hubs while we're here <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

I stripped mine with a wire wheel and cleaned them well with solvent. Primed with a grey etching primer and gave them 2 coats of Wurth P-car silver wheel paint.

They have lasted the year very well and still look almost perfect. I too was tired of the rusty hubs after every wash!

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