Basically I have a "quality" repaint on my car. Car was stripped down to metal and clear was wet sanded. Lots of people think it " looks great" ...,

As far as I am concerned its mediocre, specially on the sides of the car, where I think that the painter---specially on that small crucial area from the crease of the car to the top---should have sanded every single coat with a long board over and over and over again, on all coats up to the base and clear. Now I have wet sanded the car twice and I see that I have too much "texture" or waviness under the clear. The car looks the way a Corvette looks of the factory. I hate it. I have taken the car to 20 shops who can't even see a problem and think that it's a great job. Only once I visited custom shops did they acknowledge the problem and give me a quote for redoing the sides. Unfortunately that kind of work is expensive and will cost me almost as much as the original strip and repaint of the whole car.

Would you:

A) Live with it
B) Get it done right.

Looking forward to y'all's input

 

If it's annoying you and you can afford it, I would say go for it. It's your car. I know from your other posts you are quite keen on perfection and there's nothing wrong with that. The way I look at it, if I didn't spend the money on that, I'd spend it on something else...... (ie the money wouldn't actually stay with me either way)

 

You and me share that money-parting "quality" ....

I really do hate how no one really likes to do quality jobs anymore not just on paint, but on anything. These people took my doors, fenders, trunk of the car. It would have just taken a little more effort on the part of the prep work guy to at least block and sand that small area more than the rest to make a top notch job.

I will make a decision by the end of the month on this since I am just vacillating between the sensible thing and living with it and using the money more wisely or just getting my eccentric paint job .

 

Got a photo?
One of my pet hates (and I'm not saying this about your car) is supposedly "concours" restorations, that are supposed to be the way the car came from the factory, with every factory ripple, dip etc blocked out of the body. They are after all production cars and some highs and lows exist on any stamped steel body.

 

It won't show up on pictures. For me, the job would be perfect if they would have just made sure that "concours" perfection was achieved along the sides just from the crease up-where the sun hits--,everything else is fine since no new car comes of assembly with a concours job. I have seen Maserati's that look worse than my paint job. It's just that small upper 1/2 along the sides that is unacceptable to me.

 

Fair enough. I know what it's like to own a car and have some small problem that probably no one else would ever notice staring at you every time you go to the car.
Also notice the paint problems are always worst around the driver's door area?

 

Back in the day, when airlines actually cared about their passengers, The only place where the painters were required to make the paint perfect was around the entry doors. This is what we see the most.

 

Perfection has it's price. While the skills of the body/paint folks, and quality of materials used are without doubt key ingredients in a quality paint job, the rest, and most expensive part, is all about time spent in the process. Time is money so a decision must be made.

Think of these examples:
1. Quality driver paint job, shows well but not show circuit quality; 100 hrs
2. Top-Quality diver, amateur show level quality 250 hrs
3. Show Quality (mid level) 500 hrs
4. Show Quality (high-level) 800 hrs
5 Show Quality Concours level 1200+

All depends on what you want to achieve.

Another note of possible interest:
The Corvette crowd and others seeking "factory original" paint jobs need to realize that factory original left quite a bit of orange peel in the paint. Buffing that out to show quality gets you close to show but further from factory.

Orange peel has its value: it hides imperfections well
The ripple effect will mask other defects in the underlying paint, primer or body work. Much like the flat vs gloss effect of paint. The more you polish the top surfaces, the more the underlying imperfections will become noticeable. This is why to truly achieve a "perfect" paint job needs to start from the bottom-up smoothing to glass each previous layer before the next layer is applied, repeat and repeat and repeat at your will and capacity to pay for the time.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. For sure the question is one of money. Do I really want to spend that much to make the sides perfect? I am probably going to drive it a month and see if I can get used to it. Right now I am not feeling it at all.

 

In regards to cost what a shop charges is of little relevance to actual work done. I closed my shop because people wanted a show finish and only pay for a simple respray with little to no margins, most of the money is made in collision. I paid 3000, just for a base paint job which is what you have, then the real work comes out on a finished car. It takes many hours and patience that can't be rushed. Only when the clear coat has been applied do the final areas that need work come out, easier to spot. Not the whole car but is your problem on the base coat or in the clear? If it is in the clear, it just depends on how many coats were applied because you could strip a coat or two removing bad orange peel or dry misted clearcoat.

 

It's in the base for sure. The car was wet sanded twice after it was done

 

Can you have that section,(door) (quarter) (full side) redone?

 

I am going to have to do the entire sides. I am going to spend at least an additional 5k on this, maybe more. The best shop that showed me some of their custom work wanted 8k for both sides. Their work was beautiful and worth every penny. It's just out of my range.

Another shop I was looking at had 3 90's vintage Ferrari's. Every single one I looked at looked like my car with a heavy waviness. Not orange peel, mind you but waviness down the sides. The shop in question was repainting the sides on all of them. I guess they came from the factory like that or they all went to the shop that did my car in the first place.

Argh!

 

That is what it costs to get a good mirror finish, they should go up to 5000 grit on the polish. If by wavy you mean the panels, then it's gonna take more work. If its on the base coat it looks like rough terrain under the clear more noticeable on metallics than on solids. Good luck!

 

For anyone wondering how this ended, the car is being dropped of for a repaint at another shop tomorrow. Both sides getting redone: fenders, doors, rear quarter panels. After searching custom shops for the best quality within my budget I found one that had an almost finished black XJS they where working on. It looked perfect. I met the prep body guy and the painter. They understand how to use a long block and have done several other XJS cars not including the one they where working on. They said of those XJS, 3 came with exactly my same problem: wavy sides under the clear due to poor blocking, or poor/no use of a long block.

Anyone considering a repaint of their dark colored XJS, I would suggest making sure that your car is painted by someone who understands how to make panels straight right from the base and that knows how to use a long block. If you care about your car you will be very unhappy with the results of anything less, specially on that raised area from the crease up. A light colored XJS would be much more forgiving.

 

Looking forward to see results, is this in Houston?

 

An XJS is really hard to block with all of those curves. I know I spent at hundreds of hours preparing mine for paint and still missed 2 spots, I will live with I think.

 

Hello!!


Yes, it's in Houston.

 

They are going to paint mine (flat?) black first to see the imperfections and then sand away again.

 

I've read with good interest regarding some of the pitfalls of certain paint jobs, and to that end, I too am booked with a locally renown body man/painter who works for a Big-Three dealer by day, and restores sho-quality cars in his own shop. I spoke with him last week, he will do it in May, stripping it down properly and doing a Base/Clear water-born finish, which is the industry norm now-a-days. He quoted me $2500.00 for complete satisfaction.
My '89 XJS RagTop is in great shape body-wise, however a receipt from 2001 shows rocker panels (chip damage)being repaired and repainted. The Moron who did this job did a crappy job in matching the colour, and the previous owner never had the guy re-do it correctly. -When I look at the trunk lid and the rocker panels up the side over the rear wheels, it makes me steam.

I've been asked to join a couple local car clubs and show the car at some of their parking lot and arena shows, however just knowing somebody will do a double-take over the two-tone red paint keeps me from showing my baby.
I'll try to get photos of the painting progress, especially when he has it stripped down with the bumpers off. -I'm not sure whether he'll simply mask off the convertible top, or if he will lift/remove part of it prior to refinishing.