Marauder Paint Quandry

[Marauder57]

The title on this is a little retarded but this is the jist of it.....My BlueMM has had a small "rupture" or pockmark coming out from under the paint...basically since I got it....it used to be about 1/8 of an inch. But it has grown to about 1/4 inch. My front bumper is also sagging onto the "Honeycomb" type brace used to crumple...or the bumper under the fiberglass...so you can see the pattern through the fiberglass on a hot day (in Florida Hot?).

So anyway I took the car to my dealership....and the service guy walks me over to the body shop.....introduces me to the paint and body guy....says he has a Marauder with a paint problem.....He asks immediately if it is black....then he comes out and sees the car sees the mark on the hood.

He immediately says we will pull the hood and paint the whole thing because is there is one...there is another waiting....then also said he may have to replace the front bumper panel which covers the whole front.

Here is my thing...we all know the paint on these cars is thin at best....and I have some evidence of the thinness...but over all my car paint is not as bad as some people who have had full repaints.....I mean there are areas that I think are dull in spots....etc.

But ultimately being the perfectionist that I am....I would like a full repaint (thinking the hood is already getting done...and the bumper might be...) so my quandry is this....

How do I get a full repaint based on the situation.....I actually would be willing to pay a sum....not a lot but a sum to kind of meet in the middle....but I don't really know how I to approach this without blowing it....

I would appreciate any constructive input.....also what would a full repaint of car doing a really good job cost anyway?

Thanks in advance for you help....

Oh yeah I have an appointment to drop off the car on Monday to have the work done.....

[joflewbyu2]

stop guessing, have you measured the car with a paint depth gauge? my MM check out at 5 mil everywhere except the drivers rear quarter which was 4.5 mil. 4 mil is considered normal, 7-8 mil is repaint and 2.5-3 mil is thin.

[Marauder57]

Now where will I find a paint thickness gauge???

[Bigdogjim]

Full re-paint is $7,000--$8,200.

Why mess with it if it does not need it?

Job takes 6-8 weeks. (full re-paint)

See the thread by marauder mark last week.

[Marauder57]

OK...now that is some serious coin.....as dumb as this may sound...I was worried that maybe the Hood would end up looking better than the rest of the car....or that it would be noticable.....

[jgc61sr2002]

OK...now that is some serious coin.....as dumb as this may sound...I was worried that maybe the Hood would end up looking better than the rest of the car....or that it would be noticable.....

IMO that is a possibility.

[Marauder57]

Well just wanted to give an update on my hood repaint.....I dropped off my car on Monday of this week.....and was supposed to pick it up Wed....then Thursday became Friday and then today they are saying Wed.....

They said that the paint on the hood was so bad that they had to "chemically" strip the hood down to the metal and completely repaint the thing from scratch.....

Kind of worried here about this.....mainly do they paint each part at the factory individually? And hopefully this means the paint could just be bad on the hood.....Oy Vey...very stressfull.

Worst thing is the being with out my MM for a week and a half.....a gold stripped down GM loaner is not cool in the least....

[Logan]

Mine took 3 weeks for my repaint. I had spider cracks and imperfections on every panel though, so it wasn't much of a fight to get completely painted...

[Marauder57]

Mine took 3 weeks for my repaint. I had spider cracks and imperfections on every panel though, so it wasn't much of a fight to get completely painted...

Well to be honest after REALLY looking over my car the only problem I found was a "Spider" blemish that kept growing on the hood.....that is it.....some things if I really wanted to be picky...maybe would bother me...but nothing like the problem you had Logan.......I am just hoping that that will be the only area....it has been over a year and that has been the only place I have seen anything and my detail guy had kept his eye on the car since the begining.

Those of you in FLA will appreciate this....I asked the body shop about rules for the new paint...and the woman said....no wax for 30 days....and "Keep bugs off of it".....why didn't she just say "keep it out of the sun" who is she kidding?

[Logan]

Actually, you want it in the sun. That helps the paint cure alot quicker... :)

[Marauder57]

Actually, you want it in the sun. That helps the paint cure alot quicker... :)

Yeah well with the weather this last week.....95 and no clouds.....that thing is going to cure like a good piece of Cracker Barrel Ham......

[Bradley G]

I thought we had no more monday morning paint jobs!Computers robots ect. are supposed to take the error out of the equasion.Have faith they will paint your MM just fine. The real hardship is being out of the MM for so long I can relate !!I know it's a ploy to tell ya just a couple days cuase the're worried of what ya might do if they told the truth:shot: . I have some spots on trunk deck that I thought were scratches. now I wonder if it is like what you described on yours.

[Marauder57]

The thing I had on my hood (Which Logan confirmed were similar to his) looks like a Blemish...like there is a little spider web popping up from underneath the paint....usually just looks like it is white..

It looks like it would be easy to "Feel" it but you can't.....started about about 1/8 of an inch.....but grew and expanded over time to about 1/4 inch plus....

[studio460]

Now where will I find a paint thickness gauge???
The body shop should have a paint thickness gauge--it looks like a little pen magnet thing.

[Smokie]

57, I went thru a complete repaint and documented my experience in detail with pictures, if I can be of any help don't hesitate to contact me.

If you wish to look up the post, is titled; My Marauder Repaint

[Bradley G]

57 ,I looked closer today at spots on trunk deck and they do look like a spider web up close . spots confined to an area 3" or so, did they get worse?

[Marauder57]

I had one...looked like a squigly white spiderwed "X".....First was about 1/8 of an inch.....the guy who details my car noticed it....so kept an eye on it....increased in size to 1/4 inch to 3/8....But only one blemish.....Now people like Logan and others had 20-30 plus.......

Now even though I showed only one blemish....the dealership.....after working on the hood to do the repaint realized how bad they paint on there was that they chemically stripped it to the metal....which was not the plan before.....

To be honest the dealership was pretty good about it....I just showed the body guy the spot...and he said let's make an appt.....actually first he when I said I had a Marauder paint problem...he asked "Is it black?"....he has already done repaints there.....

[stevengerard]

stop guessing, have you measured the car with a paint depth gauge? my MM check out at 5 mil everywhere except the drivers rear quarter which was 4.5 mil. 4 mil is considered normal, 7-8 mil is repaint and 2.5-3 mil is thin.

Just for fun I checked mine, March 04 build date, 5 mil everywhere! guess that's good, hopefully I won't have to worry about paint - sshhh knock on wood.