Opinions/ advice on paint work. F430

I don't think quality paint work is a big deal... But I'm sure you'll get people that say it takes thousands off of the value, which is ridiculous. For me, it's about how the car looks, and the quality of care that has been given to the car. I vote to give that car some love and make it like you'll love it.

 

That's a tough call. I'd probably just stick with the front bumper respray. No harm no foul that way.

 

I would just do bumper but if you need to be happyand If the shop is competent then do fenders. You are bothered by it and that is all that matters.

 

My suggestion is ... have the front sprayed.. bonnet, fenders and bumper.... assure you have a competent body shop that has worked on exotics. Ferrari paint is only about 7-8mils thick (which is actually thin and not a lot of coats, thus chips show easily). Not sure how the mirrors are .. you may want to consider those as well?

They have to remove the bumper to spray it anyway ... so removing the shields, headlights and side blinkers is incrementally not much. Once they remove the headlights ..you can even clean the inside of them - not sure what they look like but there are threads on taking advantage of headlight removal to do some nice hygiene on cleaning them up.

Once all is done, paint cure is important (1week) before a full frontal clear-bra... and your front will have 11-14mils of paint which is more than twice what the original thickness on the body parts that get the most exposure to damage from road debris.

Hope this helps... just go with a good paint shop that does ... Porsches, Mercedes, Exotics... they know their stuff and will take pride in your vehicle. They'll post it as an example of their quality ... so they are motivated in doing an "Pristine" job..

Good luck.... Mark

 

If they do a good job, I doubt anyone would know, or need to know. It's not like the car was in an accident.

 

Make it OCD perfect.

 

Personal call, but despite the OCD I would try convince myself to leave both bumper and rest as is, knowing I wouldn't feel bad should I get another chip, and hopefully allow you to maybe drive and enjoy it without being overly worried

 

You captured the important aspect ... use a quality shop to arrive at the results that make you happy. My opinion is that as finicky as the Ferrari crowd is, they appreciate the fact that because the car has not been in an accident, the spot-paint and clearbra is just the way it is, when driving a low-slung sports car on urban streets. If they balk at clearbra, kindly remind them that many high-cars have this protection.

I have a black 360 and received two rock chips in as many weeks on the nose. Instead of painting the entire bumper, they will fill and blend. They already repaired my 360 in this manner when I scratched the bottom-right chin against a rock last year and the result was perfect, so I have no hesitation spot-blending again. After the mandatory paint cure, I will have XPEL on the nose, entire hood, entire fenders and side mirrors. This will be followed by CQUARTZ applied to the entire car.

As far as painting the hood, don’t do it. My body shop and the Ferrari of Houston sales guy both advise not to unless absolutely necessary. At selling time, it is more difficult to explain why a non-wrecked front hood was re-painted. As it is explained to me, the high-quality clearbra will “heal and disguise” surface imperfections.

 

This is a topic near and dear to me and I can offer some insight. Bought my 08 430 in July knowing that if i couldn't live with the rock chips on the bumper, hood and a fender (many!), I would have to get it painted. The car had a clear bra from the windshield forward and i hoped the nicks and chips were only in the film.

Had the film removed and it was as i suspected, the chips were through the film and into the paint. (on a side note, after seeing what little protection the film provided, I'm not sure i would reapply).

Anyway, I went to the premier auto body place here in Austin. They have a separate division that handles high-end cars. I had them paint the bumper, hood and fenders. I am definitely OCD when it comes to the care and feeding of the car.

It turned out better than i had imagined. The paint work was perfect. I had the shop place notes on the invoice that read: paintwork for rock chips only, or similar wording, I can't remember exactly. So in the end, I have a brand new 08 car and i'm very very happy with the work. Its absolutely perfect. The downside is that the paintwork was pretty darn expensive.

Its been 4 months. For now I use one of those ugly black bras until i decide whether to clear bra or not. I tape up the areas that might get burnished. And I don't really care if others think its ugly (it really is) but when i take it off, I have perfect (expensive, LOL) paintwork.

Here are a few pics from the work done.
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I would suggest that any Ferrari that had been driven properly with at least 7500 miles and has a perfect front paint has been repainted. That is just the simple reality. If you want a perfect front end, then it needs to be a garage queen with low miles and this a price premium. I don't think a front respray has any negative effect on resale value of it was done properly and not for mechanical repair due to wreck or impact.

Putting a clear bra over damaged area to "disguise" the small chips is not advisable. The next time the clear bra is removed, it will likely pull paint in that area as it comes off.

Decide if you want a front refresh or drive it as is. If you want it to look better, then refinish the entire front (bumper, bonnet, fenders, and windshield frame, mirrors. Then clear bra the new front end.

Don't forget to look at the rocker panels too, they are likely quite pitted underneath as well.

 

do the bumper and get it wrapped - less is more

 

Steve


Are you really asking this? You are so non purists so spray wrap and drive it . If your shop is that good no one could tell .

I remember Tillman had front half of his car sprayed . Looks great for Over with over 120k. I drive too much to worry about this. Next year I will resprayed mine then drives as usually . I have better things to do then stress chip because if so the small dent where my son bike hit it would have me grey

 

Steve,

Are you aware that all F430 cars were painted with PPG paints and recieved the "Ceramiclear" 2K scratch resistant lacquer (which is not scratch resistant btw). From my experience of measuring the thickness and polishing the car this lacquer is very hard and takes a good amount of cutting/polishing to remove swirl marks.

If you have any of the body panels repainted how do you know what produsts are used; let's be honest who ever bothers to ask?. Looks wise it should not matter but it might matter if you have the car detailed in the future, I would hate the detailer to get a feel for the amount of polishing required by starting on the roof only to get to the hood and cut stright through the reianted product!

My vote is to leave the paint as factory original and to touch up stone chips but I can see why others would want to respray.

JJ

 

The detailer should be smart enough not to.burn through. If he does burn through your mystery repaint. So what. Its not original anymore anyway he or she will be paying to fix it.

But really any paint shop will make sure you know what the car was painted with your paperwork for the work will say what was used. Shouldnt be sme crazy mystery. Or paint it yourself and youll k ow exactly what it was painted with.

 

I might come to regret my decisions on modifying my F430 when it is time to sell. However, I won't let the perceive resale value to interfere with my fun and happiness. I'll do what I want, and deal with the consequences when the time comes.

 

+1 What Andre said!!!

 

Personally I rather have a car with perfect paint, even if repainted then an untouched car with stone chips all over the front end.
If you have the front bumper or front clip of a car refinished by a highly respected shop thats specializes in Ferraris and or other high end cars I dont see an issue.
You cant possibly enjoy these cars without a stone chip or two or the dreaded front bumper scape on driveways.
Enjoy and drive!

 

I know this is my first post but I do have experience with XPEL on vehicles. My son recently bought a brand new WRX. In the little time he drove it before he had the wrap put on, he had accumulated a few chips (BTW - Subaru paint is thin!). He had a very reputable place apply XPEL to the hood, front bumper, quarter panels and rockers. Prior to the XPEL application we clayed and polished the vehicle. We also did some minor touch ups for the rock chips. After the XPEL was applied, there were small "bubbles" in the location of the chips. After talking to two different installers, they both said that this will happen when you apply XPEL over rock chips. I had another vehicle wrapped but I did this when the vehicle was new (no chips). The wrap looks much better!

So for you, it is probably better to paint and apply the wrap because you probably wont be satisfied otherwise. my .02

 

Interesting thread and some very good points on either side of the discussion. I feel a few small nicks here and there just add to the charm of the car. It shows you are driving it and enjoying it. Ok, so I don't have any nicks as there is a clear bra on my car. However I have done a good job of putting scrapes under the bumber(garage is on a slight hill). Initially I was all upset and now I am more calm about it.

 

Steve,

If you have any repainting done, pick the panel you want to copy regarding the precise color, then have the shop determine the precise color of the “good” panel with a METER. DO NOT use the number from boot lid (for example: 322 for Rosso Corsa (on my 430)). If your shop wants to just use 322, go somewhere else. It will NOT be close enough.

I had a very skilled painter repair and repaint my rocker panels and the front bumper. All the damage was due to scrapes on the very bottom of those three parts. He did a perfect repair job and then matched the color perfectly, painting only the bottom where he had repaired, then clear-coating the whole part. The only problem was that he put his paint meter on each part, which, as it turned out, had been repainted previously, in a slightly but noticeably lighter RC. Since the previous repaint was wrong, THIS repaint was wrong. Once I picked out the difference, I couldn’t leave it alone. I also noted that the REAR bumper was also DARKER than the rear fenders. I will be having all four parts repainted. Again.

This time, though, I took the whole car to my painter and had him put his meter on the best looking part of the car which turned out to be the boot lid and the front fenders. He sprayed out FOUR test coupons, including the meter-measured color times two, 322, and a fourth (source unknown) and mailed them to me. I placed the coupons on each panel of the car in incandescent and fluorescent artificial lights, and, overcast and full sunlight. Quite quickly, I eliminated the non-meter colors from contention. Ultimately, I chose two colors, one meter-determined color and the other meter-color that was ever-so-slightly different. Wish me luck.

I will be having the repainted areas re-PPFed which seems better than naked.


Tom
2007 F430F1 Coupé (Izzy)

 

Where did you get the black bra? I would like to use one on long trips.

I am having my whole front end repainted soon as well. I have a few scrapes and a few hundred rock chips. I will not install a clear bra.

 

I just went through this same situation last year. I had a lot of rockchips on the front bumper and a number on the hood. I debated on just getting the bumper repainted only and fill in the hood.I decided to get the whole front-end done, bumpers, hood, and fenders. And I'm glad I did. They matched the color up perfectly and if looks like a whole new paint job.
Then I had a clear bra installed. . Very happy I went this route..

 

David
Same experience as mentioned earlier. Question: What company did you use for the clear bra? And are you happy with the install?