Early 911 - How long should a re-paint hold up?

[Jim Richards]

A car I've been looking at has an eight year old bare metal repaint with some bubbles in 3 or 4 places. Light surface rust around the jack points. Car is located / garaged in the NE and has been driven less than 5k miles in the last 10 years. Is this amount of rust expected, or is it indicative of a poor quality repaint?

[Targa77]

I would blame a poor quality repaint. It probably had rust prior to the redo and was improperly repaired (ie half-assed). Since they took the time to strip it down to the bare metal (supposedly), I would think that would've had the rust fixed properly, but these days, nothing surprises me whenever it comes to body shops. I've too many bad jobs over the years. I would purchase a small magnet and check around the fenders to make sure that no bondo was used to patch rust holes.

[Early_S_Man]

I'm not so sure you would have to classify the paint job as poor just because rust is present now. There is a 'myth' that bare-metal paint jobs are better/superior to one over existing paint. It depends on what you call better ... it may be possible to have a nicer appearing car just after the paint job, but who says durability is part of the equation? I have seen Imron polyurethane paint jobs -- very high dollar work -- that looked poor after 7- 8 years!

The factory service manual says no repair/respray job in a local paint shop will have the durability of the factory applied baked synthetic enamel paint job, and I have to agree. If wiring and weatherstripping are present when the car is repainted, the high-temperature baking paints can't be used, and toughness and durability, and hence, protection, won't be as good as the factory paint job! Even if the highest quality epoxy primer is used, in my experience! The durability of 35-year old, unchipped factory paint is simply amazing, and even the lustre can be restored to very good with suitable polishing compound and wax.

It used to be commonplace to repaint over existing paint, and while the finished paint job might not appear quite as good upon delivery ... durability and protection of the body work was superior 10 years down the road! The factory primer left in place was the reason, and I suspect that you will find very few professional painters that would claim equivalent durability with a bare-metal respray to a factory Porsche paint job after 10 year's exposure to humid conditions in the northeast!

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Early_S_Man
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The factory service manual says no repair/respray job in a local paint shop will have the durability of the factory applied baked synthetic enamel paint job, and I have to agree
It used to be commonplace to repaint over existing paint, and while the finished paint job might not appear quite as good upon delivery ... durability and protection of the body work was superior 10 years down the road! The factory primer left in place was the reason, !

I'm w/Warren on this one..paint is water proof, but it's not vapor proof. and that initial factory primer is left in place if possible when I do a repaint[non pro]..I avoid the metalics if possible because doing a fender again in 5-10 years is always a possibility..and matching solids is relatively easy, IMHO..and Jim, IMHO..if the repaint is a solid in good condition, and the repaint involved removing windows/ fenders/doors..and figured into the purchase price it wouldn't stop me..I would have a paint shop eyeball the car first..........Ron