We cleaned 1/2 of a large roof yesterday and I struggled to reach the peak with my 12v shooting out 6% sh. I didn’t worry about over spray as the roof on the other side was at least 30’ over before the gutter and then the sidewalk and then parking spaces. Well apparently a big gust of wind going in the opposite direction of where it had been going managed to take a good amount of roof mix all the way over and landed on a recently painted truck from 2 years ago. The guy left, went home and immediately washed his car, and tried to use rubbing compound to get it off. He called the owner of the shopping center, who called me and said me that we had gotten overspray on his car. I immediately called him and went over to look at it. He took it to Maaco where they painted it for him originally two years ago and they quoted $2500 to fix it. I am prepared to pay for it however I asked if he would let me try to fix it first. From reading through some of the posts about this here it seems that high-speed buffing may work. Is there any products or tips or tricks I can try to remove the spots? He said he thinks it etched the paint and that it’s most likely because his metallic paint job did not have a clear coat. The marks don’t look that bad and it doesn’t really look like etching (I could be wrong) but I’m hoping there’s some method or product I can use to make it look perfect again. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Some pics here:
First of all that most likely has a clear coat being a metallic, every car I’ve ever had painted that was metallic was done with base coat/clearcoat, only solid (none metallic) colours are sprayed in 2k single stage because they don’t require a clear hence the name single stage. The good news is that P2000 fine grit sand paper will get rid of that with a polish. I get sh all over my race cars when transferring bleach from drums and rinsing out my transfer pump. Ofcourse now the customer will look at it with a magnifying glass because he knows it’s there and will most likely want the whole thing resprayed and also everything else on the car will also be your fault it always works out like that. Go through your insurance and let them have that headache.
If it was Maaco it probably was a cheap single stage paint. If it’s a single stage there’s usually no buffing it out because the metallic flakes will come with it. You can’t sand a metallic base coat of a two stage either. Only the clear coat on top. If it happens to be a two stage you might get away with sanding it out like Muscle said as long as the damage didn’t go through the clear coat into the base coat. As mentioned, just let your insurance take care of this one. It might not hurt to have your own body shop guy take a look at it just to make sure it’s a single stage and for a quote but you really ought to let the guy choose whatever body shop he wants to use to get it fixed.
Sounds crazy…but I would spray the entire truck down with roof mix… let dwell, rinse.
Over the years when ever I can’t get dried SH off of something, usually a new application of SH will get it off
Find the best car detailing guy in your area and have him do an all out exterior detail service. Pick his brain first on the outcome and process and if possible do it. The effort will go a long way with the owner of the vehicle. You dont want any bad blood in situations like this and insurance will be a nightmare to deal with.
Thanks everyone! @MuscleMyHustle he did confirm it was 1 stage. When I met with him we talked a bit and he said that the car next to his, a newer black Jeep Cherokee, also got the same spray all over it. He said that her car was likely to come out just fine as it has a Clear coat and that his was only one stage. He said he tried to buff it out using a dual action polisher and rubbing compound but all it did was “burn the paint”. I went back over to the place where the lady worked after finding out about her car too and fortunately she was working last night so I talked to her and then cleaned her car, it came right off no problem (I had a lot of slo-Mo in the mix and that seemed to be a big part of the mixture, was probably still really strong sh but the big white spots looked more like surfactant than sh). Anyhow her car will be just fine. Would rubbing compound essentially be the same thing as the p2000 sand paper?
@marinegrunt the guy is super reasonable, he was stoked that I called him to take responsibility for it and he took it back to Maaco, which is where he had it painted originally, for them to bid to fix it. Which is perfect because they can make the color the exact same and honestly is the most cost effective place around. They quoted $3,600 if insurance pays for it and $2,500 if I pay cash. My insurance is clean, I never had a claim. I need to see what my deductible is but I’m pretty sure it’s at least $1,000. I think I would rather just pay the $2,500 and lose $1500 rather than file a claim and have my rates increase. What are your guys thoughts on that? Does insurance go up a lot with a little claim like this? Is there a limit to how many claims you can file before they drop you? I would rather save my claims for (hopefully never occurring event) that would cost $10,000 or more.
@Patriotspwashing I have totally done what your talking about on a blue front door! We had a little roof mix splatter on it last year and I couldn’t get it off or the color to blend. I took and dipped a microfiber towel in the roof mix and wiped the whole door down, rinsed and it looked perfect. I would be scared to try that on this as only the hood, roof, roll bar and one fender were affected. If it didn’t work I may have to pay a whole lot more to repaint the entire truck and then I would definitely have to get insurance involved.
One little trick that I learned in my sign business when cleaning painted sign panels or Matthews painted letters is that when I was not able to clean them with folex or other traditional spray cleaners, I figured out that I could use WD-40 to get smears, adhesive, residue, fingerprints, streaks and any other type of weird marks off. Another trick my dad taught me years ago in a pinch is to use nose oil (wipe the top of your nose with your finger) and apply the skin oil to the surface. I tried that yesterday as I was just picking up my son from daycare and didn’t have wd-40 with me, and it appeared to make a little bit of a difference. I am going to see what’s possible on Monday, trying wd-40 and a clay bar. Sounds like I will most likely be paying maaco though considering it’s a single stage paint job with metallic.
I wouldn’t file an insurance claim and just pay it so your rates don’t go up. Like you said, save the insurance for a higher dollar claim. I think I remember reading on here that after a couple of claims they can drop you. It’s not worth it to only save $1500.
Fine grit sand paper Like P2000 is not a substitute for polish it’s a grit of sand paper that enables you to sand out fine scratches and paint flaws without putting deep scratches in enabling it to be polished.
Regarding the insurance, I personally will never pay for my yearly insurance premium and the cost of the repair out of my pocket, it defeats the purpose of paying insurance, the deductible is just part of business expenditure that I can balance off through other savings in my business. You own the business play with the books, a lot of things can be adjusted to offset increasing costs.
Have you ever had to file a claim? And if so how much did your rates go up from doing so?
Maybe PW insurance is different from WC, but it’s been proven that filing a claim will red flag you and there’s a high chance they drop you. Even worse, you’re now flagged with other insurance companies as they share information.
My wife takes care of that sort of stuff but the last time I even looked or cared about the measly cost of insurance in the scheme of things the increase was about $20-30 on the annual premium. of course that’s all dependant on individual business agreement and financials.
They will not drop you for filing a claim, you need to ask yourself what you are actually purchasing when your buying insurance, and why your premiums go up when you make a claim.
Hire a professional auto detailer. That’s really shouldn’t be an issue. I would be willing to bet a clay bar might even do the job . If not a high speed buffer would get it done . Worse case is a wet sanding. No way I would pay for a paint job without trying to fix it first . $2500 is probably more than that truck is worth
My agent advised me against making a small claim on my business liability policy for that very reason. She said that the claim would not raise the rate in the same way as auto insurance does. They won’t typically drop you for your first claim, especially a small one, but if I had a big claim the following year or something, then I’d have a real hard time getting insured again.
Business insurance should be for the really big stuff that would simply bankrupt you if you had to pay out of pocket. It doesn’t work at all like car insurance where they cover cracked windshields and all sorts of silly stuff.
I disagree, if you’ve been in business long enough with employees you’ll soon realise that what you pay out of pocket with that approach will be substantially more than what you pay for in insurance over your business career, I have 17 years of paperwork and invoices that prove it over a length of time. It’s simple maths. If I’m paying there premiums that they tell me to pay for a million dollars in cover, I’m not paying anything out of my pocket.
Hire a professional, it should clean up… Look for someone who specializes in “pain correction”
FYI “you can’t burn a cars paint with a DA polisher” A rotary yes! But a DA won’t hurt it…a DA is almost dumb proof!
$2500 to paint a door, fender, and hood? At Macco? Is it just me or is that crazy? I would expect $800 max.
Yes I am going to look for a pro to detail it. I wonder if he “burned” it because it was just paint no clear coat? Is it possible for 6% sh to etch paint within a few hours even?
Right Maaco usually advertising whole paint jobs for like $399…
I think that’s their clickbait price but all in maybe $1200-$1600? They’re not known for super high quality.
