Help : What the heck happened here?

[garyg7133]

It does look it was helped....

I would almost bet on it now that I'm taking a really close look at it. I did notice today that it's a little more widespread, just not as blatant as the major area. I'm wondering if they buffed the entire car when they got it back. I really can't wait to get going on it, but I need to exercise patience. I spoke to a friend who owns a body shop today and he basically said that as long as the clear isn't flaking off it won't be necessary to strip it down to the bare paint of even worse bare metal (hmmm,Chevy said it would have to be completely stripped to bare metal). Thank you so much for the input. I will be posting the play-by-play when I start.

 

[garyg7133]

Just a quick update on this - my refinishing project was put on hold because GM called me out of the blue while I was on vacation. They asked about the paint and whether or not I had brought it to the dealer and what the dealer had said. Essentially the dealer had given me the "out of warranty" blah blah blah story but GM may be looking into more than just MY car on this one. They called my wife last night and told her that my complaint was being forwarded to the regional manager of GM/Chevrolet and that I should hear from them by monday....

 

[cutter]

Just a quick update on this - my refinishing project was put on hold because GM called me out of the blue while I was on vacation. They asked about the paint and whether or not I had brought it to the dealer and what the dealer had said. Essentially the dealer had given me the "out of warranty" blah blah blah story but GM may be looking into more than just MY car on this one. They called my wife last night and told her that my complaint was being forwarded to the regional manager of GM/Chevrolet and that I should hear from them by monday....

That's great to hear...Maybe at the very least they will cover half the cost of the re-paint!

 

[garyg7133]

That's kinda what I figure they are going to do. It's nice and all, but the hood looks like trash now and I can't even try the DIY project until after I hear back from them . The main downside though is that the car will be out of service for a souple of days if I let them do it. We shall see.

 

[bobble]

I have a 2007 Trailblazer they I bought off a rental car return. Now mind you my 07 has 114K miles on it (11K when I bought it in Jan 08).I use it as a tow vehicle/DD and every weekend for 7 months out of the year do about a 450 mile round trip towing out jet skis. Have had some issues but Chevy has stood behind this truck and taken care of me. Hopefully they will for you as well. BTW just got my check for 1/2 of the fuel gauge/sending unit issue and I did not even solicit that. Wish BMW was as customer proactive or MBZ for that matter as well.

Good luck and what does the community think about after he polishes that to coat it (OC 2,0) and buy some time on the complete failure?

 

[garyg7133]

Thanks Bobbie. We also bought ours with 11k on it. It now has 78k and aside from the current paint issue the only repair we've ever had to do was replace a leaky pinion seal for $100. The car's been great. There was some question at one point about what we thought was a major problem ( i forget at this point what it was) and GM called us to see if they could help with the cost. They were much less helpful with my Equinox which preceded the TB and was a total lemon. They're 50/50 with me so far. hopefully this puts them over the top

 

[garyg7133]

Wanted to update before I start the re-clearcoat project. GM called several times regarding this issue and it seemed that they really wanted to help me out. The problem was that there were 2 different opinions given by the body shop and they wound up going with the latter which was " Well, it looks like they repainted the clear coat over some rock marks so it's a repaint and not warrantied by GM". This was complete nonsense as the rock marks were all touched up by me using only GM touch up paint. No gloss. Therefore in the next couple of weeks I'm going to give it a shot. I figure I have zero to lose if it's eventually going to end up being repainted anyway. Will post the blow by blow once I get started. Thanks for all the input on this !

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Now I'm confused..did you do a brush touch-up or spray?

 

[alko]

Wanted to update before I start the re-clearcoat project. GM called several times regarding this issue and it seemed that they really wanted to help me out. The problem was that there were 2 different opinions given by the body shop and they wound up going with the latter which was " Well, it looks like they repainted the clear coat over some rock marks so it's a repaint and not warrantied by GM". This was complete nonsense as the rock marks were all touched up by me using only GM touch up paint. No gloss. Therefore in the next couple of weeks I'm going to give it a shot. I figure I have zero to lose if it's eventually going to end up being repainted anyway. Will post the blow by blow once I get started. Thanks for all the input on this !

SSSSOOOOOOO...they (GM) bascially aren't going to do anything about it?

 

[FUNX650]

It's a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer that belongs to my wife. We did get it used but off a 1 year lease. It's not covered under warranty because....get this....it isn't rusting through. I just read with quite a bit of interest the thread on the repair that was done in a very similar case so I am going to hold off. What bugs me about it is that I am really meticulous and how I missed this happening is mind-boggling. Just been a busy summer I guess. I am awaiting a DA polisher so I may try to polish it for now and do the clear coat repaint during my next vacation

IMHO....Stop!! Before you go about doing anything else; and, if you're absolutely, positively sure that there has been no re-paint; then:

Go back to the dealership and ask them politely to apply one of GM's "Goodwill" or "Special Policies" warranties. These are good for seven years....or longer if there has been a TSB issued. {All OEM's have these "secret warranties"....One must be diligent to see the process through}

Of course they'll probably deny the existence of such "Secret Warranties". [But believe me, they are there!!]

That's when small claims court becomes your best friend. That, and three independent body/paint shop re-paint estimates and cause of defect. Remember: Documentation, Documentation, Documentation. Good negotiating tools....if you want to go that route.

Bob

 

[Setec Astronomy]

IMHO....Stop!! Before you go about doing anything else; and, if you're absolutely, positively sure that there has been no re-paint; then:

But...wait...I just re-read this whole thread and the OP stated that all of this was simply a mystery to him and he didn't mention any repair or touchup and then all of a sudden in his last post:

This was complete nonsense as the rock marks were all touched up by me using only GM touch up paint. No gloss.

So now it would seem that the whole character of the problem has changed. I don't think GM has to warranty for flawed customer touchup.

 

[FUNX650]

But...wait...I just re-read this whole thread and the OP stated that all of this was simply a mystery to him and he didn't mention any repair or touchup and then all of a sudden in his last post:



So now it would seem that the whole character of the problem has changed. I don't think GM has to warranty for flawed customer touchup.

Thanks for pointing this out!! I missed that. ....The OP probably has no recourse now, except to personally bear the cost of any repair/re-paint.

This thread may be a good read for others in similar situations before they attempt self-repairs/touch-ups....

Bob

 

[garyg7133]

To answer all questions at once :
Other than taking GM's touch up paint and touching up little rock marks I have made no repair to this paint (yet). If using the little "pen" that GM supplies is going to void any warranty then GM really needs to evaluate their warranty policies AND revise their owner's manual which gives instructions on touching up rock marks in the paint. As for any repaint, I spoke to the dealer that I bought the car from and he does not have any record of a repaint. IF (and that's a big big big IF) it was repainted it would have had to be done before it came back from the 1 year lease that it was originally sold on. Now, the dealer that I took it to near my home said that it is the original hood but he thinks that it was repainted because of the way that the clear coat looks and because he believes a clear coat was applied over the touch up paint (nonsense). I personally do not believe it and given that I see quite a few GM cars in the area with paint failure I tend to believe I'm being BS'd on this so that they don't have to repaint.
Either way, they are not going to cover this. I will be taking a shot at refinishing the clear coat myself before I hand over a dime to anyone else to do it. If in fact it looks good enough to buy me some time before a repaint, great! If not, I have a friend with a body shop who can do it for less than GM was charging and it will look like new. I'd much rather give him the money than Chevy.

 

[garyg7133]

So fast forward.... I've been putting off doing the clear coat until it starts to show signs of peeling. Guess who called me yesterday? Chevy. They sent me a survey last week about my experience with this dealer and I mentioned the body shop incident and lo and behold they want me to take the car to another dealer to get it checked out....... Will keep you posted.....

 

[Vegas Transplant]

Yeah, that looks like it's failing...I'd lay dollars to donuts the dealership detail department had a whack at that hood after it got turned in from the lease...

Gary,

From here it actually looks like the hoods been wet sanded!

• You never noticed that before?
• How long have you had the car?
• Have you done anything to it?

Many dealerships use contract mobile companies that will sand and spray tinted clearcoat to achieve beter finish on used vehicles, usually bumpers, hood, roof.
The 'square' lines in the photo definitely look like sanding ( as opposed to random shape of CC failure).

 

[timaishu]

Looks like failure to me. My car is experiencing the same thing.

 

[builthatch]

But...wait...I just re-read this whole thread and the OP stated that all of this was simply a mystery to him and he didn't mention any repair or touchup and then all of a sudden in his last post:



So now it would seem that the whole character of the problem has changed. I don't think GM has to warranty for flawed customer touchup.

Thanks for pointing this out!! I missed that. ....The OP probably has no recourse now, except to personally bear the cost of any repair/re-paint.

This thread may be a good read for others in similar situations before they attempt self-repairs/touch-ups....

Bob

he used touch up paint to fill rock chips. come on guys, lol.


OP, Honda did a repaint on the roof of my wife's 2007 Si when the car had over 80k. it had been getting "foggy" for a while in front of the sunroof and in one particular area near the rear window, so i figured it was their soft ass clear starting to fail. i let the local service manager know that i suspected this was going to get worse. fast forward some time and my wife shows me that the paint has just disappeared in those spots after one drive! it literally popped off to reveal the primed metal. so it was more of a complete system failure vs. just the clear. at any rate, i called that same service manager and he had a regional american honda rep come in and bless a good will repaint. they did a great job too, believe it or not.

good luck. imo just keep making noise with corporate.

 

[Vegas Transplant]

Yeah, that looks like it's failing...I'd lay dollars to donuts the dealership detail department had a whack at that hood after it got turned in from the lease...

It does look it was helped....

I would almost bet on it now that I'm taking a really close look at it. I did notice today that it's a little more widespread, just not as blatant as the major area. I'm wondering if they buffed the entire car when they got it back. I really can't wait to get going on it, but I need to exercise patience. I spoke to a friend who owns a body shop today and he basically said that as long as the clear isn't flaking off it won't be necessary to strip it down to the bare paint of even worse bare metal (hmmm,Chevy said it would have to be completely stripped to bare metal). Thank you so much for the input. I will be posting the play-by-play when I start.

To answer all questions at once :
Other than taking GM's touch up paint and touching up little rock marks I have made no repair to this paint (yet). If using the little "pen" that GM supplies is going to void any warranty then GM really needs to evaluate their warranty policies AND revise their owner's manual which gives instructions on touching up rock marks in the paint. As for any repaint, I spoke to the dealer that I bought the car from and he does not have any record of a repaint. IF (and that's a big big big IF) it was repainted it would have had to be done before it came back from the 1 year lease that it was originally sold on. Now, the dealer that I took it to near my home said that it is the original hood but he thinks that it was repainted because of the way that the clear coat looks and because he believes a clear coat was applied over the touch up paint (nonsense). I personally do not believe it and given that I see quite a few GM cars in the area with paint failure I tend to believe I'm being BS'd on this so that they don't have to repaint.
Either way, they are not going to cover this. I will be taking a shot at refinishing the clear coat myself before I hand over a dime to anyone else to do it. If in fact it looks good enough to buy me some time before a repaint, great! If not, I have a friend with a body shop who can do it for less than GM was charging and it will look like new. I'd much rather give him the money than Chevy.

Clear coat failure along parallel lines? Too many variables on used vehicle and # of possible participating parties to the dilema.

CC failure and +1 on help somewhere along the way.

Many dealerships buy off lease vehicles from auctions, thus no record of repaint.
Also, they will recondition sub par vehicles that they receive from off lease/trade-in and take to wholesale auction (dealers only) for sale ( as opposed to selling on own lot).
A perfect example of this was Mid South Chevrolet in Somerville Tn.
One of the dealerships dropped by GM. These hands would buy and resale auction vehicles ( especially lease return and rental car turn ins). Some of these cars were sold numerous times to various dealerships before ending at retail lot. Mid South (went private and had to drop all Chevrolet signage at property.

 

[garyg7133]

Clear coat failure along parallel lines? Too many variables on used vehicle and # of possible participating parties to the dilema.

CC failure and +1 on help somewhere along the way.

Many dealerships buy off lease vehicles from auctions, thus no record of repaint.
Also, they will recondition sub par vehicles that they receive from off lease/trade-in and take to wholesale auction (dealers only) for sale ( as opposed to selling on own lot).
A perfect example of this was Mid South Chevrolet in Somerville Tn.
One of the dealerships dropped by GM. These hands would buy and resale auction vehicles ( especially lease return and rental car turn ins). Some of these cars were sold numerous times to various dealerships before ending at retail lot. Mid South (went private and had to drop all Chevrolet signage at property.

Th above does not sound too promising as I KNOW this car came in off a lease. The point of sale dealer for me is in Lakewood NJ ( quite far for me to bring it in now) . GM has contacted them which is why I am going tomorrow morning to let another dealer look at it. I don't think that taking a touch up paint (matching paint that I bought from GM mind you) and filling in a rock mark should void my paint warranty. If it turns out that they can verify that the car was in fact repainted before sale then It's my bad luck. Still, if it ISN'T a repaint, what exactly does that say about GM's paint?

 

[garyg7133]

So after another go round with GM, I officially gave up on them making any attempt to remedy the paint issue. They sent me to a dealer that does not even have a body shop to have it looked at and their service tech just put his hand up and said sorry. I have begun my own wet sand and clear coat project and will document it for all to see. I sprayed the clear coat this morning and am letting it set for a couple of days and will then buff and polish. Photos to follow. Thanks for the input everybody !