Paint repair

[necobear99]

Hey all,

I did a search for this, but couldn't find anything, so I thought I would put this out to the great minds on here. I have a 99 Melina Blue Coug, and I have a few paint flaws that I need to work on. Starting at the front: I have a number of flaws on the bumper that looks like at some point, whoever had this thing before me, got a ton of bug splatter that they didn't wash off. I have a number of small areas that look like the top layer of paint is eaten away. It looks blue under it, but its deep enough that anytime I wax the car it REALLY shows up, and it always looks like I didn't get the bugs off the front of the car. The tops of the side mirrors look the same (tree sap maybe?). Question is, can this kind of thing be color sanded, then polished out? I also have a number of small scratches that won't wax out, so I wondered if the color sanding thing would work.
Just this last weekend, I clay-bared it for the first time, then waxed it with 3M Perfect-it Car show wax. The paint looks fantastic (except for the flaws I mentioned) and the depth of shine is incredible. Just makes me want to fix the problems even more!

Thanks for any help, I appreciate it. And if you have any cool free Cougar stuff, let me know! LOL!!

Gregg

[EllenD]

Could you post some pics of the flaws you're talking about? It might be easier to tell you whether or not they'll come out if we can see them. Are they through the paint to the primer? Can you feel them when you rub your fingernail across them? If so they probably need repainted, wax/polish isn't going to do much. I wouldn't go sanding anything yet though. Someone who know what they're doing needs to look at it, because you might end up making it 1000x worse.

[necobear99]

Yea, I will try to get some pics to post, however, being in Alabama, we are getting tons of rain from the tropical storm in the Gulf. I'll run out between rain drops and see what I can do.

Thanks for responding

Gregg

[necobear99]

Ok, got a break in the rain here..here are a couple of pics of the problem. If you get close, you can see blue behind the damage.

[BasSpyder]

is it just on the plastic body peices? if so it maybe just bad prep work and the paint is chiping off. that can be fixed very easily. it just needs to be sanded down and preped again to be painted.

[necobear99]

Its that way on the bumper and the leading edge of the mirrors (thats why I think its old bug splatter that the original owner didn't clean off in time) It makes me think that maybe the clear coat got eaten away since its the original paint.

[01blkcat]

It looks like rock chips - not bugs at all.

[necobear99]

I guess some could be, although I will swear that some of them look like splatter. I have chips all over the leading edge of the hood, but they don't look like these. Either way, I guess the question really is, if you can still see body color through the problem area, would it be worth it to try to color sand it and buff it? I'm not loaded with money, so I'm trying to avoid having the front end re-painted

[BasSpyder]

it depends on how deep the chips or splatters are, just because you see color behind there doesnt mean a whole lot, have you gotten estimates on how much it will cost to redo the bumper and the caps?

[necobear99]

No, I hadn't gotten any estimates on it yet, I was just hoping that I could save the bucks and do it myself. Guess it wouldn't hurt to try and then get them repainted if I dorked things up to bad. I did have to have some work done on it a few months ago, storm damage involving drywall....don't ask *smile*, and the labor rates were incredible for color sanding and buffing.