if your front bumper is made of flexible material the best way is to strip it to base material then start the paint process over,
this can be done with a walnut media blaster,
then the old repair can also be removed and finished ,
add some flex agent to the paint materials and then refinish the bumper.
usually body shops will try to refinish a small area instead of stripping and starting fresh, this is why you now have problems with the job..

My advice is start over.

Speeder is right.

First of all, painting clear coat on existing older paint is very dicey. Minor checking might go away temporarily with normal detailing procedures, but the potential is there as long as there are cracks no matter how small.

To re CC, one would have to sand the old clear off which is impossible w/o damaging the base coat. This guy was wrong in charging you 500 to do this. Makes me wonder about the rest of his ability.

Quality paint/body work is time consuming and can sometimes be frustrating when working on previously repaired stuff. I totally believe the everything the guy told you. I also understand your frustration, but ultimately I think you should be satisfied that you are getting the car fixed and spruced up for less what insurance is paying to just fix the car.

Only sure way to have done cheaper on this job is if you had done it yourself (which is how I roll on ANY/ALL car repairs).

Quality work rarely goes exactly as planned which is why I ALWAYS tell my occasional airplane customers that I will not quote ANY type of work and let them decide if they want to roll the dice on how smoothly a job will go.

Just to clarify, the only painting being done is on the bumper. No blending on fenders or hood. Car was fully reprayed by the best shop in the biz about six yrs. ago, so paint is relatively new, still not a scratch on the car. I suspect his crew went to work on the paint detail job indoors because, until a few days ago, it was still crazy hot here. They probably couldn't see the spider web cracks with indoor lighting, but, when they took it outside, they or the boss saw it right away, but had already done the whole thing.

OK, I got lost in the maze of cracks. NO re-clear on the body. At this point I don't know what to say. My BIL the bodyman would have the paint manufacturer rep over to determine the best way to proceed.

I don't see what the cracking you're describing has to do with installation.

So, would you rather he pushed it out the door and in six months it looks like @ss ?

I think I would rather have it right. Any chance the guy is just trying to give you what you want ?

Ok, we have the spider web cracks in the clear coat, totally unrelated to the bumper job. I just want the paint detailed when the whole bumper job was done and figured a pro body guy could do it.

The other cracks are from the filler in the bumperette holes in the bumper. The funny thing about 993 bumper covers is that they're very flexible when off the car, but very solide when mounted on the car. So you can have the bumperette holes filled, prepped and painted and then have the whole project go to hell while mounting the bumper back onto the car. I know it sounds crazy to paint it once it's installed, but that's probably safest way to keep the filled areas from showing cracks, since the bumper would no longer be moved around. I think moving it around off the saw horse and then mounting it up to the car probably flexed it enough to crack the paint over the filler.

I said in a previous post I'm not at all in a hurry and I've told the shop owner this each time he's called.

This makes sense

RL I recall you had a hell time with the best shop in the biz 6 years ago too....taking next to forever.

I, personally, probbaly would have gone with those bumperplugs.com but your car is far nicer than my fleet.

Yes, and with Euro Pros, there was NO expense spared. That bill was $26k and $12k of that came out of my checkbook.

I already had the bumper plugs, which go where the license plate holder bolts up. But I'm talking about the bumperette holes, seen below between the foglight and turn signal lenses. Under those rubber pieces are holes that look like hell if you remove the rubber. I suspect it was Porsche's way of giving a big FU to US DOT or NHTSA after so much headache about US-bumper specs.

http://fototime.com/EF04C4BF33E0B85/standard.jpg

Anyway, since we were starting fresh with a Euro turbo bumper cover, I had those license plate holes filled so the bumper plugs aren't necessary. I also had small discs installed where the headlight washers were. It will look very cool when all done.

We do these all the time and have never had one come back. That being said, I have never done one where someone else had done the prep work on the holes. That job would run you @ the same price at $500. We charge @ $500-750 for wetsanding and buffing clears, depending on the car.

And there is NO WAY any kind of paint job should cost $26K. And I guess it wasnt done that great since the clear is cracking a few years later anyway, but when you wax and polish it, you are basically filling the cracks and a year later when the wax wears off, the cracks show up again. When you sand it with 1000 or so, you are actually going down a layer to get beneath the cracks ( if possible).

So then what are you complaining about? You end up with an upgrade to your bumper and $500 in your pocket?

Hey Rick,

I can't offer any advice on correcting your dilemma but if this is your car I wish you luck in getting the paint problem straightened out. I also think your idea of removing the bumperettes will look great. Sometimes less is more. She sure is beautiful. Can you post more pics? What's the color?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1316046046.jpg

Rick, just fyi, you've got a sweet ride and I was impressed with the engine drop in the matchbox garage.

A bodyshop deals with this stuff every day. The work is pretty simple, but labor intensive: Dry fit. Drill/chop tweak to fit easy. Paint to match. Experience with the materials and proceedures is everything.

He gave you a verbal quote on a bumper which should require a few hundred bucks in materials at most. Spider-webbing in the clearcoat might indicate a thin cheap bumper, or the clear didn't adhere well to the base coat. Mabye they tried to skimp and used a cheaper brand?

Whatever.

If they had doubts about the final result, they should have used flex agents/re-primed, or simply called you with an update.

The shop should eat the cost of the mistake. They'll make it up with repeat business.

That $26k included a LOT more than just a respray, like some time on the Celette, some tranny work and lots of body repair after a track wreck. Track insurance said they'd pay for 60% of a respray, so I had it all done and did a few upgrades while they were in there - LWF, RS Clutch, etc.

Well, there's no end in sight and this could get worse before it gets better. Every time he calls, it's a new problem and more money. If you were planning on coming out $1500 ahead on something and eventually came out even, you'd be happy at the end, but you'd be worried about having to reach into your pocket until you knew it was all done.

Midnight blue metallic, very hard to capture just right in photos.

This is the Euro rear bumper sans bumperettes I had done during the big body repair.

http://fototime.com/995D46A7B1C5846/standard.jpg
http://fototime.com/717F1CDB66F35BD/standard.jpg
http://fototime.com/9DC8766C78B9F82/standard.jpg

Mabye the paint guy used the wrong activator:
"Hot" is for cold wet weather and makes the paint surface dry fast.
"Cool" is for dry warm weather.

But of course you can't see this potential solution to the source of the problem....because you have me on ignore :D

I took you off ignore. The spider webbing in the clear coat is not on the bumper. These are two different issues. Though I think they both speak to this guy's giving an estimate before he really knows what the job requires or, worse, charging me to redo what his crew messed up.

Back in the days when I didn't wrench on my own cars, I'm sure some of the repair jobs I had done took way longer than they charged me for because the boss either had his apprentice do it and take a long time or he had to redo it after a botched job. That's the risk you run when you have a crew that screws up or you give a low estimate because you didn't look the job over well enough beforehand.

I just don't see how a job this simple can have so many hidden surprises.