WTF??? I removed the side trim/door-ding bumper thingy on the right side with no problems. It looks great! Then I did the left side. As I was removing the sticky tape I noticed that the paint underneath didn't seem to match the rest of the paint! The paint underneath is LIGHTER than the rest of the paint. If it was due to fading I would think that the paint underneath would be darker. My car is silver, by the way. I have to finish getting the double sided tape off no matter what, and I'll post a picture then. But why the hell would one side be different than the other? I ran a Car Check before I bought the car and it came back clean.

 

OK, here are the pics. The right side looks great, but the left side looks terrible. I am going to take it to a body shop tomorrow to see how much it will cost to get the paint to match. Any guesses?

 

I took the care to a couple of body shops today to ask how much it would cost to get the mis-matched paint fixed. The first place I took it to must have seen the money spilling out of my pockets because they quoted me TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! Then I went to another place, a little local guy, and he wanted $600. He explained that he thought he should just repaint the entire left side. I asked him why he couldn't just put some feather-fill in the areas where the trim pieces were, primer it, and paint just that area. He said he could do that, but it would last longer if he just sanded and repainted the whole left side.

So... Now I'm thinking that I'm just going to do what I described above. I'm just going to treat the strip like a long door ding. I'm going to fill it with some feather-fill, primer the area around the strip, and paint it myself. It's been a long time since I painted a car (27 years, to be exact) but I know how to do it. I'd rather put my own elbow-grease into the car than to pay someone else to do it.

My next question is: how much paint would I need to repaint the front and rear left fenders and the left door? I might just buy the factory matching color online and paint the whole left side. Or maybe I'll just paint the area around the discolored strip and blend it. I'm not quite sure yet. But how much would it take to do the left side?

 

'Reverend' Sam; get ye over to the detailing section, and ask our resident expert Dave, from Innovative Detailing.

This issue has arrisen quite recently and I am pretty sure his advice will save you 1OO's if not 1000's of dollars.

PS, if it's 1000's remember us! LOL

 

Reverend Sam,

Have you tried buffing out just the strip area? Hopefully you might be able to take enough of the clear coat off that has the lighter color.

Mike

 

Sam, we live in the Carolinas... think of it as if it were tan lines on a fine looking woman! hubba hubba

 

It's not a buffing issue. The left side was obviously painted without removing the door molding and the paint doesn't quite match. When I run my finger over it I can feel a ridge.

 

that's odd, I suppose steve got lucky on his, you...not so much. Paint the whole side then, only way to be sure it doesn't mismatch