Has anyone ever experienced any problems with the paint work on their cars? I have a 2000MY car X-plate in Deep Mica Blue (owned from new), and after about a year some minor defects were pointed out to me by a friend......I'd not noticed them before.

They are two areas (about 6 inches long) where it looks as if the paint has run, one area of differing reflection and a dull patch (looks like it's under the lacquer) on the drivers side.

This was pointed out to the dealer about 3 months ago and the ongoing saga (including an independant inspection, and the Subaru rep) has concluded that the car has been sprayed at some time, and not very well. Now I know for certain it has not been done by me and the dealer claims it has never been done by them, but that they would've noticed it before pre-delivery inspection.

Current situation is the dealer has offered to contribute towards the re-spray, but it'll still cost me £500+VAT, and more importantly I don't see why I should pay for something I've not been responsible for.

Has anyone else seen this? What should I do next? I think a strongly worded letter to Subaru UK is on the cards.

Probably got sprayed when it came into the country, a mate of mine used to work at the Fiat depot in Bristol, you'd be amazed at what they can do and still sell a car as 'new'. Basically, if they repair a panel, they class the car as new, if they have to replace a panel, then the car would go out as a mangers car or similar.
Ron.
Not much help for you though, sorry.

Cheers. That's prety much what the independant inspection thought, that it'd got scratched on the ferry from Japan and the import centre had touched it up. But would the pre-delievry inspection not pick that up, or could it have run after that?

Jack i think that you could be a bit stuffed here :(
The fact that the blemishes in the paintwork were not found when you purchased the car means that you dont really have much of a leg to stand on :( so the dealers offer of contributing to the respray costs seem to be a good will gesture and one that i think you should take.
I dont mean to sound harsh either but its probably the best offer your going to get from the dealer :(

Tony

OK, I see you point, but it still doesn't explain where the marks have come from as I agree with the dealer that they can't have been there from new, as I spent so long polishing her during the first few months that I'm sure I'd have noticed.

I just wonder if she's been scratched since and been covered up by someone without the Management knowing to save getting into trouble, or something like that. I know it sounds paranoid but I can't think of another way they could have got there as the dealer and inspector said "it's definitely been sprayed". And the only place she's ever been for work is this dealer.

If you polish a car alot then minor defects will come out slow as you slightly wear the paint with the action, I had (of all things) a Metro gti that as the longer I owned and polished it the more you could see the base layer of silver come through. A mate of mine had a bump in his astra and when he took it to the bodyshop the guy says " we'll fill the door but we'll do a better job than was done on the other side " like you he'd never had a bump before and that's how it came from the garage.

On telly awhile back there was a programme about how the importers can do minor repairs and still sell it in as brand new!!!




Jim

Jack,

I've got a v reg owned from new and there are a couple of dodgy patches on my bonnet one is about 2 ft long a couple of mm wide and looks like a small scratchunder the paint,the other one looks like a rust bubble appearing under the paint about the size of your finger nail.The rest of the car is very orange peelly,not very good really for the price you pay.
A lot of the used ones i looked at had bad paint and i thought they'd been resprayed but it looks like that is subaru paint for you.

Paul

My Red Mica MY00 had areas of paint that started to lift around the o/s front wheel arch. There was no primer under the paint.......
The car was 13 months old when I discovered it and Subaru iitially decreed that the paint warranty was 12 months so I could whistle. After some kicking and screaming I eventually managed to get a warranty respray of the whole front bumper. Took some doing though.
Unfortunately for you, their argument is going to be that the car must be nearly 2 years old and in that time anything could've been done to it; there's no way of proving that the crap paint job was their doing.......

:(