You take the time/ effort to park you classic car at the last row of parking lots you go to as to avoid door dings to your car. But then some Jerk in a big Ford truck thinks he can squeeze in the spot, but NO. He does the parking lot polka and damages my classic car. The damage is not too bad, but the question is what is the "Right Thing" to do? The car was repainted about 17 years ago in and done in a full blow professional pain job done right that meets or exceeds the factory paint application. Over the years like any red paint its now slowly oxidizing, and I get patches of red on my polishing pad, but the paint still has that wet gloss look to it as any well maintained new car would have. But what I worry about is the paint shop will match up the paint and it will look great for the next month or three. Then ,years down the road when I plan on selling her, I think the old paint will continue to oxidize at a much faster pace than the new paint causing a now Two Tone look to it. This funny look to it might devaluate the price I can sell her for. What is the proper thing to ask for in the claim, does the whole car need to be resprayed / maybe 1/2 the car? to keep the color consistent over the long haul? WWYD What Would You Do..... if it was your investment vehicle/ or your buying a 40~50 year old Ferrari... does color matter? your comments are appreciated Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have no idea about claims, etc., but I'm sorry for your troubles, man. Seems that people like to do this with 2-door Sentras, too. Best of luck to you. If it was me I'd be asking a lot more than anyone would be comfortable paying for, but then again, you also pay a higher note because it's a Ferrari.
Get estimates from two shops and present them to the bozo who did the damage. The bottom line is that his insurance will pay for it. Get the entire car repainted if you can. This is a classic Ferrari!! This is what insurance is for.
My 308 once got a nice gravel spray on the whole front end. Insurance paid quite a bit to repaint the whole front clip. I brought it to a good shop that did an excellent job matching the paint, although they clearcoated. Now, 5-6 years later, there is a distinct difference in the color of the front clip and the rest of the car. :-( -matt '85 Euro 308
This should answer your question. With the advances in paint tecnology and base coat/clear coat being the norm I would go for a repaint if you can afford it. Get some professional opinions from a few shops. You may not have to go down to metal if there are no signs of rust but it is the best way to go if you want it to last another 20 BUT not cheap. Let the insurance company know the problem...spot repair is a temp. solution.
or pay the differance of what they'll pay and what the shop wants for a whole paint job,don't go for half or less of a paint job,and find out where that jerk lives and pay someone to make a visit that he'll never forget
You are correct. Partial resprays, especially on red (and possibly yellow) don't work. I would get as much as possible from the insurance company and then have the car resprayed. You may be able to increase the amount by having a qualified body shop attest that a lot of disassembly is needed to duplicate a factory paint job. The minimum you could get by with, IMO, is a passenger side respray, nose to tail, trim/glass removed. If you plan to keep it forever, this is probably the time to collect the damage money and consider it a discount on the inevitable respray.
Thanks for your quick replies. Any others out there.... that have had a partial respray and noticed a color shift over time on any car ? Or has you partial kept the same color over the years, please chime in with your experiences. Thanks again.
I had some repairs done to the front fender of my red 308 and the guy used a single stage paint like the original, well matched. For the life of me I can't see where he blended it, and this is 3 years later. I'm sorry for your troubles Mark. That sucks. Did you catch the bastard? Birdman
I have had two resprays that have not matched. One was a tan Honda Accord. The front got repainted and it looked like an exact match for a year, then the original started fading but the front looked excellent. It never matched again. On my current black Volvo a rear corner was hit and the shop resprayed the rear quarter and up the roof pillar and the edge of the roof along a seam. About 5 years later now the clear coat is peeling off along the entire roof line seam. Better body shops and some insurance companies guarantee the repair jobs for life. Ask about this and voice your concerns. Get promises in writing.
It really depends on who is mixing the paint and who's applying it. I took a part from my 308 (Red) to Painters Supply here in Michigan and bought a quart of paint to touch up a quarter and they matched the paint right on the money. I looked at another 308 a few years ago that was touch up in a few places and the car was Red, matched and blended in perfectly. The guy was a real fanatic about every little chip, I got over that stuff years ago it's just not worth it. I've found over the years the more cautious you are the more the car becomes a magnet. Jim
FYI, get your passenger door re-aligned when the car's apart for a respray. No sense scraping the door/sill once you've got the paint back to new. If it got moved during the accident, insurance should pay for it.
John, is definitely right, reds are really difficult to do partial resprays on. I have seen several where you could easily notice a big difference in color, particularly after 2-3 years of exposure to sunlight. Maybe if your car is a garage queen it won't be as noticeable until several additional years, but somewhere down the road to really have it look proper, the entire car will need a respray. Sorry to hear about what this inconsiderate idiot did to your car. As another person said earlier, I hope you caught the guy who did it. Best regards, Dino
A] Partial = you won't sleep well, but, he will. B] Whole = you'll sleep well, but, he won't. Unless he sleeps with the fishes, is the correct answer.
Good luck on this!!! I tried like H*LL to get my car totally resprayed, but they would not go for it at all. From the sounds of it, I'll REALLY have a Sh*tbox in a couple years! JIM
If you plan on keeping the car a long time then yes I would repaint. If you still plan on driving it a lot and parking in places where this can happen again then only do a partial. If you plan on selling it in a couple of years, you really have to ask yourself is it worth it? 10K+ will you get this back? If you can paint and know how do the prepping yourself that's a big plus and then a full blown paint job would be worth it. If you do go the full blown paint job what's your chances of it happening again, none if you leave it in the garage. Then again a ladder, a bike, etc. could fall on it. I learned a long time go the nicer the toy the bigger the magnet. These cars really need to jump in value to justify putting 10 to 15K in a paint job. If your not satisfied with nothing but the best then you know what to do. Just my 2 cents
You've only got 2 panels involved. Assume both were repaired & resprayed with a quality paint that's well colormatched (pretty routine these days). Odds are that the paint colors will still match after 10 years. But, lets be pessimistic, 10 years from now you decide to sell and the worst case is those 2 panels don't quite match. The cost of having a couple of panels in otherwise good shape resprayed again with color matched paint is going to be pretty small $$ (SWAG: $500 - $700) compared with a complete respray now. Then figure the time value of the delta for a full respray. I've resprayed several panels on my car, including bottom half of both doors about 4 years ago. They still match the really old paint perfectly. Funny thing, reason i was respraying was almost the same scenario, a young kid in a pickup trying to get out of a tight parking place. Happened at work. The kid was nice enough to come up & tell the security guard he'd 'dented the little red car in lot B'. The guard told me he responded "Don't tell me you hit the Ferrari, you have any idea what those things are worth", said the kid turned white & almost fainted. He was still looking pretty shakey when I got downstairs, could hardly talk. Hadn't the heart to get on his case, just collected his insurance info.
Not to hijack, but just last night, my 328 got a decent door ding. I had the owner of the vehicle next to me paged. The guy that came out said that he didn't do it, so I asked him nicely to open his door to see if it hit in the same spot. Perfect. But, he still refused to admit it was him that hit me. So, I called the cops for a 3rd party opinion. The police officer told the guy the bad news, that it was him that hit my car. At the time, the guy said that he would just have it fixed with paint less dent repair. My car isn't perfect so I told him that if it could fix it I would be OK with it. When I got it home in the light, I noticed that I can see the primer so this guy is going to be unhappy. I have been in a similar dilemma as to how far to push the repairs. Mine is also a respray to fix, but only the door is damaged as opposed to two panels like Mark. I appreciate the comments you have made on Mark's parking lot polka. It helps me as well. Gene
Oh, the guy also said "I'm not paying much to have this fixed. It's just an old car." Yes, it is an old Ferrari with 45,000 (remember that is low to most people) original miles. That comment alone may motivate me to get a new paint job. Gene
The world is full of idiots out there, they just don't care or respect other people's property. My friend had a new (back then) Austin Healey Sprite and park it away from everybody at a Mall. As he walked up to the car everything looked fine until he walked around to get into the drivers seat and the whole side was wiped out. My son bought his first brand new car a 1999 Cougar, someone kicked the mirror off and kick the door in, car was only a few months old. I followed my wife to the Chrysler dealer in my 911 to drop her car off, I stepped out of my car to help her sign her car in and I turned around and a guy had both hands on my whale tail pushing down on it as hard as could. I ran out there screaming at the guy and he gave look like a dumb a** and said I just wanted to see how well it was attached. I told him if you get out of sight right this minute I'm going to slap you silly. Idiots!! I think the problem Ferrari's bring is jealousy!
Speaking from a pretty extensive background in paint and body I would recommend the following. First there are a number of factors that can determine how likely it will be to have a good match to the paintwork that was previously done to your car. In this case it is not your problem and this is what insurance is for. Find the best shop you can and have them give their professional opinion as to how to best repair the damage. Get a place that has been around for a while, have them agree to your expectations, and get a guarantee in writing. That way if there are any problems down the road you can go to the paint shop and have them fixed. I'm sure all of us can tell a story of when this happened to us or a friend. I am a calm guy but these clowns make me go wild. I believe that everyone should live their life anyway they want as long as they don't affect my way of life. If you are a slob and don't care if your car is dinged that's ok. If, however, you don't care about damaging other people's property then that is no fair at all. I have found dings on my cars but never caught anyone. God help the person I catch because they will definatly remember that day for a very long time.
Sounds like enough motivation to me. Also don't forget to try for diminished value. Now it has "accident" damage.
