Well just had the long awaited phone call.
My car has arrived and will be ready to pick up from Holland in a week or so. I asked the dealer how much to paint the skirts and was quoted 1500 guilders which I reckon to be about £420!! Steep or what ?
Anyone know any good alarm installers around east Lancs with experience with IMPREZAS ?

 

hmmm .... nothing like a colour coed skirt.
Nothing I like more ... especially if there's nothing underneath
whoooaaa ...down boy
he he he

 

colour coded skirts for £29 if you do them yourself, easiest job in the world.

 

Moz,

DIY colouring cooding - any advice ???

Cheers

Edward

 

Peely,

Give Colin Brennan Motor Services in Waterfoot Rossendale a call (01706 223311).

Try and speak to Colin, apart from being in the trade he owns an Impreza himself (R Reg 97UK) and has fitted a decent alarm to it so knows the ins and outs. He has also done several skirt/mirror colour codings on Imprezas in the Rossendale area and has done a superb job - uses different paint to a lot of places as he reckons the normal job the dealers do causes problems later on with chipping. A point that has been illustrated by my wife's car being done 12 months ago by the dealer and chipping has already started.

You will find his price considerably less than £420 as well.

Regards,

tiggers

 

I think the price is too high!

Most UK Subaru dealers will colour code the skirts and mirrors for around £300+VAT.

So obviously, you could go direct to paint shop and get it cheaper than that!

 

TIGGERS
Thanks for that will give him a ring as soon as anything is definate as far as delivery is conserned.

MOZ.
How the hell do you colour code 4 pieces of skirt in appropiate paint (ie.flexible)for £29.00 and get the same finish as a dealer?
Please tell us !

 

A friend of mine is a panel beater and car resprayer so he has all the gear to do it. I only get charged for the paint as he does the work for free. It costs me about $50 Australian (25 pounds or so ?) for enough 2 pak to do the skirts and respray the front bumper for stone chips. Now unless my conversion rates are wrong 420 pounds is approx $840+ Aussie pesos....far too dear.
Enamel is even cheaper and you could do this yourself. Easier to get a good finish in warm weather. Just get the colour code from under your bonnet for the right mix.

[This message has been edited by Gerg2 (edited 24-05-2000).]

 

Two tins STANDOX industry standard acrylic in aerosol, mixed and canned for you (good for repairs on stone chips as well) to exact paint match i.e 416 cosmic blue mica subaru, £9 per can, one tin plastic primer£5 one tin clear laquer £6, you might want more laquer if you want a really deep shine.

STANDOX is one of the best paints on the market and used extensively in the repair tradei.e proffesional.

[This message has been edited by Moz (edited 25-05-2000).]

 

MOZ
Thanks for your reply,please enlighten me more. What is the tin of plastic primer for, I take it is to seal the plastic, but I thought you had to add a plastisizer to the paint if it was to be applied to anything that was liable to cause the paint to flex or crack. You do make it sound easy and I'm seriously tempted now.

 

The plastic primer is for plastic parts which have previuosly not been painted, if the sill covers have been waxed as part of the washing process or back to black type sprays have been used then the plastic needs cleaning thoroughly first, the plastic primer is a plasticized spray paint which allows a certain degree of flex and bonds with the plastic as does the basecoat and laquer, the job is very easy and very good results can be achieved but the major benefit is the cost.
You could always try it and if your not happy, which I doubt, you can go to a dealer.
If you get any serious chipping you can redo them for the next twenty years and it will still be cheaper than using a dealer.

 

Last but not least-does the skirts need to be flatted (rubbed down)with emery or does the finished paint look ok.on the textured plastic

 

Peely,

If you decide to speak to Colin Brennan you will find that he is able to do whatever you want with regard to rubbing down then skirts etc.

I am pretty sure you can have either finish i.e. it can be flattened using primer and rubbing or left textured - it's up to you. My silver Scooby has textured finish, but I think I would prefer a flat finish if I had the chance again. When I had my black Corolla GTI done a few years back I had all the texture flattened and it looked great.

I have spoken to Colin regarding this type of work before and he says the biggest problem is the flexing of the skirts as they are quite thin. He has some special primer he uses to overcome this, but you would need to talk to him for full details.

Good luck whatever you decide,

tiggers

 

Peely,

Got colour coded skirts, and I love em! Mine were flatted, prep'd and painted and look great. Can't comment on painting over the textured surface.

My opinion is, get them flatted and they'll match perfectly with the rest of the bodywork. Got some JPEG's of mine (close up I think). If you need convincing, just send me an E-mail and I mail them back in return.

Kevin

 

You can easily flat out that orange peel effect by priming once then rub down prime again rub.etc. until the surface is flat, i did not bother but there are 6 coats of laquer on mine and they are like glass.
If anyone wants to obtain the paint in aerosol form for their car let me know and i`ll give you the number of the supplier.

p.s you`ll need the paint code and year of manufacture.

[This message has been edited by Moz (edited 26-05-2000).]