Any paint guys? Strange problem (pics)

V10SpeedLuvr

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It's McGuinnessII in Orlando FL. They're not a Viper dealer. I did a carfax on it and it had 5 previous owners, but I didn't think that was unusual for a 10 year old car.

For a Viper, 5 previous owners wouldve raised a redflag with me. Most people buy these cars and either love driving them too much to sale or they sit in a museum for a long time. My car is a 96' and i'm the 3rd owner. Good luck getting this straightened out!
 

big-n-italian

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i keep staring at this pic. is there a white stripe painted under your (top) white stripe?

10743Photo_060606_002-med.jpg


on the bright side, if you just need to repaint the roof, that isnt too bad. dont get me wrong, it sux, it is a PITA, you should have been told, etc. but as long as (whatever the problem is) stays confined to the roof, atleast you arent repainting the entire car. guys get side sills and noses painted all the time. i cant imagine this repair costing much more than that.
 
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androbud

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I would almost bet money that it wasn't a complete repaint because it is only happening on the area of the roof and hatch that you could tape off at body lines. It's really weird because I've seen crappy paint jobs before and when I bought the car the paint was flawless. The unaffected areas of the roof still looks very good. It does look like a rushed paint job though. There's no way this car sat around for months and then all of the sudden started splitting the second I bought it.
 

twinturbo3150

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something that bad, might be worth a whole repaint just to be certain. who's to say the hood or door dont do the same thing down the road.
 
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androbud

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True. But, I'm buying a house in few weeks and I REALLY don't have the money to be doing this right now.
 
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androbud

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If you look at it close it looks like the original white paint stripe. They may have built up the sides with primer instead of sanding all the old paint off to get a smooth surface going. Is yellow the color of the car's resin structure?
 

big-n-italian

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i would look carefully for overspray all over the car. look for edges that were taped off especially around window trim and door trim.. try to tell if it is more that a roof repaint. that will give you an idea where the problem ends. hopefully the problem is only in the roof.

the possibilites are endless. the paint might be on too thick. surface prep is a large part of any paintjob. you can actually sand too much and "polish" the surface to the point where paint will not stick. it could be ALL these things and not just one.

does fiberglass paint get a flexing agent? like i said, the possibilites are endless. try to determine the extent of the problem. again, if it is only a roof problem, that is great. it sux, but could be alot worse. remember, the glass is half full.

now the question is, why would you only repaint a (fiberglass) roof?
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viprvenm

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I wish I knew what was going on, but your car and location caught my eye.

I am 14 miles south of Bham... shoot me an email sometime and maybe we can hook up for some pics. I know another guy here locally that would love to join... another 2001 GTS.

[email protected]
 

InjectTheVenom

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If you look at it close it looks like the original white paint stripe. They may have built up the sides with primer instead of sanding all the old paint off to get a smooth surface going. Is yellow the color of the car's resin structure?

Yes, that yellow-ish color in between the cracks does indeed seem to resemble resin, it looks so fresh to me that I severely doubt that it could be bondo or primer (which I think usually has a different color). It looks exactly like the color of the small resin bits I sometimes use in my scale model plane hobby, which look equally bright and fresh to me. This makes me wonder if the entire roof panel got replaced at a point in the car's history, very indicative of this would be the abnormal ding and raw panel edges in the 5th picture. It would also explain that it does not occur on any other area on your car. Apart from that I have razor sharp eyes that enable me to spot these things kinda easily :eek:
I think I see several layers of paint shifting both together and separately, due to poor quality paint/additives and a paint guy being in a rush.

1, stripes on top of a totally unprepared (as in bondo, primer or anything) raw resin top.
2, blue coat at least partially sprayed (heaven forbid rolled :confused: ) on top of this and then left to cure (visible in one area yet not visible in other areas), which can be seen very well in the first and fourth picture at the start of this thread.
3, after being cured everything is sprayed blue entirely this time with white stripes rapidly applied over the still wet blue paint (which would cause them to perfectly shift along with the blue in some pictures).
4, clear coat over all of this to cover up the entire series of mistakes (no paint flakes visible).
Conclusion: everything was fricked up right from the getgo, getting worse along the way.

MIND YOU I do not have experience in car paint, just making a series of well judged conclusions on what is happening here, based on 10 years of experience in building and spray painting scale models :eek:
 

dansauto

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It is eather heavy primer that was not fully cured when the top coat was applied, or they used a primer that was not comparable with the base and it shrunk. Eather way it now has to be stripped and repainted. That will be a job becuase the primer will be "gummy" The best way to stip this will probably be soda blast.

It should still smell fresh. I dont know about complaing about the car being repainted. You should have smelled it when you bought the car.
 

ACELLR8

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It is eather heavy primer that was not fully cured when the top coat was applied, or they used a primer that was not comparable with the base and it shrunk. Eather way it now has to be stripped and repainted. That will be a job becuase the primer will be "gummy" The best way to stip this will probably be soda blast.

It should still smell fresh. I dont know about complaing about the car being repainted. You should have smelled it when you bought the car.

Who goes around smelling the outside of their new car when they are buying it :bonker:
 

dansauto

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If he took this car home and days later this happened, you could have smelled the fresh paint a mile away!!! How long did you car smell after I painted it? If you were looking at a car and smelled fresh paint wouldn't you ask why?
 

pocketAA

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I am sorry to hear about your problem. That just totally *****. I am sure you paid good money for the car and now it looks like this.....:-( I would start to raise some serious hell in that dealership until they fixed the problem or bought the car back for what I paid for it. That is just not right.
 

98viperGTS

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Maybe it’s just shedding its skin. I have heard that snakes do that. When the new skin sets she will be good as new.
 

QUICKV10

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It is eather heavy primer that was not fully cured when the top coat was applied, or they used a primer that was not comparable with the base and it shrunk. Eather way it now has to be stripped and repainted. That will be a job becuase the primer will be "gummy" The best way to stip this will probably be soda blast.


Dan's auto has the best guess here. I would also agree that the primer was applied to fast and heavy that the top coat of the primer dried before the prior coats, hence sealing in solvents that when it finally dried and shrunk CRACK. Other faults probably no heat lamp to help cure the coats, probably didn't bake the primer, because if the did it would have cracked before you got it and mixing products. You never ever mix products like using NAPA primer and then BASF basecoat then NAPA clear coat. These products are not made to work with each other, either way none of what I said solved your problem.

Anything that they painted will need to be striped and sanded off the vehicle, reprime, bake primer, sand, basecoated, cleared, bake finished product, sand and buff, by someone that knows what the F$#K they are doing, good luck
 

BlueGTS

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I would not be as worried about the paint as I would the reason why they painted it. I doubt you will find a perfect not puddied top when you strip the paint off. Obviously the paint was applied wrong but what made them want to paint it in the first place?

Sorry about this happening too you. Make sure you post some pictures of the top with the paint off as it might help with the mystery.
 

sshorty

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I know there are tons of responses and suggestions here. What I would do is go through your paperwork. Did they put in writing that the car wasn't repainted? I'm close to positive they didn't but just check. Also, I would file with the BBB and talk to your lawyer and see what can be done if the dealership isn't working with you on this. If the car is clean and it's only happening on the top, then maybe it had gotten scratched or some minor damage, if so then I would try to get it repainted at the dealer's expense. If this can't be done, have your lawyer contact the dealership in a formal manner, hopefully that will make the dealership understand you are serious and mean business. The last thing they want is some kind of legal issue. Good luck! I'd like to know more about what happens in this case, as this could help the rest of us avoid a similar situation.
 
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androbud

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The dealership overcharged me on sales tax when I bought the car and I'm just now getting the overpayment back after a few phone calls with the Florida DOR. Once the check clears in a few days I'll have to pursue this a little harder. This is how the story goes. Last owner traded in the viper to dealer X, dealer X sold the car at an auction, McGuinness II bought the car at the auction. I bought the car from McGuinness II. The man in charge says they didn't paint the car but he has no clue if the previous owner did, which McGuinness would not have contact with anyway since there was another dealership in the middle. Would the middle dealership be responsible as well? How does this work when a car switches owners 3 times in a few weeks like this? I'll still have to look into the whole dealer insurance thing, but I want to make sure I get my refund money first.
 

94RT10Ohio

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I have never looked at the headliner in a GTS, are they soft? If so can you run your hand over the headliner and feel any dents?
 

Lee00blacksilverGTS

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Don't forget, florida is one a few states where a salvage title can be "washed" or changed to a title with no damage and with that many recent transfers it makes me wonder if that happened. Have you run a carfax on the car? Have you dad a reputable viper tech look for other damage? Why would dealer X send a nice Viper to auction if it was a trade? Maybe they were reputable and realized the car had problems.
I would start out easy with the dealership, don't pressure them to do anything at first, tell them you want to track down the history of the car, maybe they will help. If yoo get the name of the auction you may be able to pry the name of the prior dealer out of them.
Another good idea on top of the Carfax, which MAY give you prior ownership history is to have Chuck Tator or someone pull up the car in the Dodge computer, both to see if it had a lot of repair work AND some ownership history.
 

ryan94rt10

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hey andro

check with the bmv in florida on this one...i had a similar problem with some **** over in PA. and they don't have a good section of bmv...but i know florida does...thay handle this kinda crap all the time...give them a call...if they get upset enough with this they will go shut this place down until they reconcile this issue...use the attorney general as well...ie consumer affairs...good luck


ryan
 

AJT

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Call Joe Berli of Berlis Body. He owns 3 vipers & he will give you a honest opinion of what happened to your paint. He repainted a paint bubble for me & I was impressed with his knowledge. Great reputation.

(512) 251-6136

http://www.berlisbody.com/
 

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