Jye

I have just spent last 10 (make that 20 now) minutes staring at the bonnet of my Scoob. I was trying to blend in a small scrape (which dealer caused and touched up) in front right bonnet (flange, sculpted bit or whatever). I just touched it with T-Cut and after a couple of gentle (honest) rubs I suddenly discovered my metallic green Scoob was now a strange charcoal colour.

I used T-Cut on my old MY94 like it was going out of fashion, and it never even looked as if it was touching the paint.

The crappy paint (or lacquer) on this MY99 must be less than 1 micron thick. I just can't imagine how thin the paint might be on the rest of the car.

I will 'confront' my dealer tomorrow.

Really pissed off now.

J.

Lee

Having had the most minor of car-park shunts I was horrified to find the wing/door bent in and plenty of paint missing. Luckily it's a company car so I'm not footing the bill. The bodyshop are going to replace the wing, repair the door then spray new wing, half of bonnet and passenger door (maybe even rear door!).

It would seem the scoob has coke-can metalwork...no actually make that recycled mars-bar wrapper bodywork !

Plus, like you say thin paint! perhaps thats why it's so fast..it just weighs nowt !

Jye

Thin paint, on a £22,000 car?

Unacceptable.

Went out and had a look again, its not charcoal, its shiny mid-gray.

I had my bike resprayed for £200 six years ago. Nightshade Perlescent Red. I've polished and T-Cut it a hundred times with no probs. Is this paint the new crappy water based stuff Peugot use? One bird crap and you need a respray.

J.

[This message has been edited by Jye (edited 24-06-99).]

sonu

Guys

I agree, the paint work on the '99 is crap

I've got quite a few chips already

The chasis is quite strong though I've had an accident in mine and it saved my life

Thanks

Sonu

aziz

I know no one likes solid colours (you know
good old white,red....)

BUT the fact is that they are easier to fix
(touch up) AND they don't cost extra in the
first place .

NOW try matching DBM or green mettalic or
subaru rally blue when your 99MY is 3-4 years
old .....

My Scooby is white 99 , had my share of paint
chips but always easy to touch up and to polish/wax.

On the other hand white is the cool colour
for the Summer(most reflective).

Any one with a U.K. MY99 scooby in white !?

Jye

Dealer agreed paint was thin on this particular area, he also put his hands up
to perhaps making the paint even thinner while he was 'attempting' to repair a small chip. Anyway, he says he will fix it, either himself or under warranty. Will get this all done when in for repair to drivers door (wind noise) and fitment of Scooby Sport backbox (which I've been waiting for to arrive for nearly three weeks). All this should make this summer a happy one. Ha, who am I kidding?

Cynical Jye.

AlexM

Guys,

If you really think that the paint is abnormally thin and this is due to a manufacturing fault, I would suggest getting a second opinion from the AA or RAC, and approach your dealer.


I seem to remember that they can non-invasively measure the thickness of the paint using some gizmo. This is normally used during inspections to detect resprayed panels.

It may be also worth considering a third party paint protection product. I might be doing this myself.

My silver MY98 has covered 8500 miles, with no chips yet. Having said that, the panels certainly dent easily, and the paint finish doesn't seem 'hard'. I thought I was done with coke can panels when I ditched my R5 GT Turbo. The Scooby seems just as bad unfortunatly - I'm on first name terms with my local Dents Plus operator

Cheers,

Alex

SteveF

Aziz

I've got a white MY98, which my local bodyshop (not a scooby dealer) has had more time with, than I have over the last month, trying to fix a small dent, they:

(1st visit)
1. Missed a bit which needed painting
2. Left 'pits' in the paintwork where they had painted it
3. Had bits stuck in other parts of the paintwork
(2nd visit)
4. Resprayed the pitted bit, with the wrong shade of white (!!!??? - yes white isn't a simple colour either!)
5. Resprayed the bitty part, which now had a rather fetching orange peel effect in parts
(3rd visit)
6. Resprayed the mismatched section, but NOT the orange peel bit!
(4th visit) - tonight!!

Hopefully I can finaly ditch the Nissan Micra they gave me (now with over 300 miles on it)

Would you beleive this bodyshop is approved by all the big insurers?

Steve

P.S. If anybody got flashed at / waved at by somebody in a Micra, I appologise, I occasionally forgot (if that's possible) that I wasn't in the Scooby

P.P.S. Psteve - Honest I really do have a Scooby, and a tale of woe!

Lee

The "professional" bodyshop (approved by AA and various) also got bits of dirt in mine.

I wasn't too fussed cos it's a company car but I said to the bloke "Thats crap, someone being lazy keeping it clean, if it were mine you'd be redoing it"

to which he shrugged and walked off.

SteveF

Next instalment ...

(4th visit)
Went to the bodyshop last night to look at the car, and yes you guessed it:
7. Still orange peel effects & bits on the bumper
I then proceeded to have DISCUSSSIONS(?) with the Bodyshop foreman, General Manager & Owner , who all denied they could see anything! Admittedly the imperfections are small, but I expected a better job than they had done. After reaching a stalemate, where they said they wanted their 'biscuit tin' (Micra) back, and saying they wouldn't let me have my car until I paid, I was reluctantly left with the only option of paying up.

At this point the car was wet, and on getting the car home, by noe the car had dried, I got out and looked at the car only to see:
8. The quarter they painted was a different colour!! (As noted in point 4)

Today I took the car to another local bodyshop, who was used by my local Scooby dealer (who is no more), as they originaly painted my rear spoiler. Their opinion was that the colour match was poor, and they had skimped on removing the trim. Next I went to my nearest Scooby dealer (20 miles away!), who looked at it (The guy remembered me, as he had originally quoted for this job, but I decided to take it somewhere more convenient - boy do I regret that descision!). He pointed out a couple more points, which in my 'red mist' the night before, I hadn't noticed:
9. They had left a line where they had finished painting on the roof, and inside the back door
10. They had only painted up-to the rubber door & window/roof trim, and hadn't removed it to paint the pannel fully
11. They had also broken the trim just in front of the wheel arch. The Subaru guy touched it, and it came off in his hand!

(5th visit)
Armed with this new information I returned to the body shop to re-enter discussions. The General Manager finally acknowledged there was a problem with the colour, and the way they had finished it off. He denied that they had broken the trim - then how had they managed to paint behind it? and why had they only painted down to the clip that was still stuck in the bodywork? He said he would speak to the owner (his boss) about replacing the trim (£14+vat). At this point he said he was finding my comments rather offensive - I hadn't sworn at him - although I would have loved to, meerly questioned his integrity over who broke the trim. Eventualy after taking the car back into the workshop he re-emerged, he agreed to repaint the quarter with paint which had been properly matched, and finish off the edges.

This is their last chance - litigation comes next!

Look out for visit No. 6 next week!

By the way if anyone knows how to remove the black rubber 'gutter', and 'door edge' trims to prevent them wrecking them, please e-mail me a.s.a.p.

Steve

Lee

The door edge trims were ripped off and replaced when mine was done.

"Thats the only way..." they said..

SteveF

Well here we are again:

(6th visit)
Bit of a dispointment really, they've had the car since this morning, and have just called to tell me that there may be a problem with the paint spec. from the paint manufacturers, as it doesn't match the paint on the car (what a supprise!), so they are going to get someone from the paint suppliers out to look at it next week - that will be visit No.7

Other developments are that they will not replaced the trim they broke - curious that they only painted up the the broken peg that was left in the bodywork, yet they claim to have removed the trim & not broken it - who broke it then - the tooth fairy? I've also spotted that the drivers arm rest has white paint on it - I don't know who they'll blame that one on!!!

I've visited the CAB, and now have the info. I need on how to sue them ...

Steve

By the way, I found out how to remove the gutter trim - easy when you know how!

andymac

Steve,
How do you remove the black strips ? Then I can tell my local autoglass so they don't keep having to order me new ones when the fail to put my replacement windscreen in properly .

Mind you I'm not paying for them to break the clips so they can do it all they like !

cheers

Andy

SteveF

Andy

The key - literaly - to removing the gutter strip was my 'card key' from work - its like a plastic credit card, but a bit stiffer. I also tried the same trick with a metal wallpaper scraper - which worked well, but you have to be a bit more careful.

The section of the strip on the roof is held on by clips which slide along the inside of the trim, and hold onto 'mushroom headed' pegs, fixed into the gutter. To release the trim, you need to push the clips along the trim (I think mine went towards the back to release) - which is where the 'card' comes in, as this will go under the flexible bit at the side of the trim, and gives you something to push with - they can be quite stiff. There are about half a dozen of these on each side.

The clips around the front & rear screens fix into the trim in a similar way, but they hold onto the edges of the screens, with little clips which latch as the trim is pushed down. To release the clips, you need to lift the soft bit of trim which sits on the glass, and push the ends of each clip outwards, while gently lifting it. This may not be too easy, as I found my clips were actualy moulded into the screen surounding mastic. These clips also sit on 'mushroom pegs' fixed to the side panels, but these just locate the clips, rather than holding them - you have to be quite firm to move them.

I remember from an old thread on roof bars, that someone had an official subaru set, which have their mounting points in the gutter - whoever it was may have 'official' instructions on how to remove the trim

Hope this helps

Steve

SteveF

Well its now been over 2 months & 8 visits trying to fix a small dent, on what was once a nice white(?) car, the car has been back twice for the paint suppliers (RM) to look at it

First time (7th visit) the body shop had forgotten to get the guy in - wasted visit

Second time (8th visit) he said that the rear passenger door was the wrong colour!?^%! - and this was what was making the newly painted bit look wrong! - I attempted to explain to the person who told me - that the painted bit didn't match ANY of the panels around it! - but this didn't seem to penetrate! The only thing they said thay could do was to blend the colour along the door - thus spreding the wrong colour over more of the car!!!

The only hope seems to be the suggestion that they could use an abstract colour - i.e. make the colour match - why the f**k didn't they do this in the first place??

The final straw in all this was, that after removing the roof trim for it to go in about 2 weeks ago, I fixed it back temporarily, not wanting the hastle of removing all the clips yet again - and as I was going down the motorway on Sunday - it flew off, and got mangled by the cars following - bang goes another £100 quid!

[This message has been edited by SteveF (edited 11-08-1999).]

Paul G

I had trouble with some stubborn bird ****, that left scratches on my roof. Used T-cut lightly and got a very blue cloth and smudge on the roof. Not bad for a car that's 4 months old.

Moral seems to be soak it before washing.

I wonder how many stars it would get in a Euro crash test.