Collision Work SUCKS

A

ADTKART

As many of you know, I serve my time in a collision shop during the week. I get furlowed for the week ends, but have to return on Mondays.

On Friday they brought me a New Nissan SUV with minor damage to the right quarter where the bumper cover attaches. There was also minor scuffing to the bumper cover, but nothing major. The vehicle is a white pearl, 3 stage, so in reality, it shows very little as far as the work needing to be perfect. Well, I figured it was an easy fix to remove the bumper cover, repair it, and repair the quarter. That was easy enough, until I went to reassemble it. They made the bumper covers on those things fit so close that there is not any room for additional paint. The cover locks in to a plasitc retainer to stay flush with the quarter. If you add paint to the inside edge of the quarter and paint the bumper cover, it will not go in flush and stay there. The pressure wants to push it out.

This is a word of warning to anyone here coming across one of these. If you work on that area, make yourself additional room before painting it. That way you can put it back together.

I love METAL cars!

Aaron
 
i dont guess the insurance allowed for any additional paint time or material on that edge huh? LOL.

they sure have come a long way with fitment and gaps..ha.
 
The paint shop painted into the "pocket" area to avoid a hard line. When I had primed the work, I had masked it to avoid going into that area, so had no issues with fit before they added the 3 stage paint into there.

Some of these cars have 1/4" gap where the cover fits to the body. Now Nissan has taken it all away. If the insurance companies figure out this issue, they will likely start cutting the paint time, since you can't paint past that edge. LOL

Aaron
 
atleast you do get to prime your own work. almost and unknown operation now-a-days.
 
Get To? Where I work they would have us prep them for paint if they could. We have to prime and block with 320 before it goes to paint. Any sand scratches in the primer when it goes to paint willl likely be there when it comes back. Our painters basically do nothing but spray. They have helpers that are paid hourly to do the prep, and you can tell, since they will do anything to avoid doing any work.

Generally, I will shoot 3 coats of primer, block it, then lay 3 more coats of primer as smooth as I can. You can look across the gloss of the primer and see exactly what the finish panel should look like after paint. That is minus the orange peel that they install in paint. LOL

Aaron
 
lol...well thats better than the way its done in a few big shops around here. bodyman finishes off the work in 180 and feathers out the paint and sends it to the paint shop. they hammer on a few coats of primer, bake it and break out the da's with some 500. you know what that looks like.

i feel that the prime and block should always be a body procedure performed by the bodyman.......because well it is a body procedure. to me that would cut down on re-do's because the bodyman isn't going to shortcut if he is responsible in having to do the re-do. they have kids out of high school that are sooooo green.......with no training what so ever in the paint shop sanding primer getting ready for paint. they have no clue what to be looking for....and more times than not when they see a flaw they aren't going to do anything about it.....the blame gets passed back to the bodyman once is painted and ready for delivery and the customer spots it after it has gone down the "chain of command" 4 times before delivery........LOL. i hate collision work also.
 
I have seen places here where the paint shop is responsible for the finished product. By the book the bodyman is only paid for finishing to 180. Where the paint shop is responsible, then can send a car back if the body work is so that blockig won't get it right. If the painter paints one that is not right HE has to fix it. Our painter's helpers can really screw up the body work when they want to. We actually are supposed to have our work checked by a supervisor before it is sent to paint because we have had some issues with some work being sent over there just to get it out of the stall. I had one checked a couple of weeks ago andf sent it to paint. It came back with a big dent in the door and the quarter was deformed as was the fender. Turns out that the "helper" that worked on it was the son of the guy that checked it before going over there. That was not a pretty sight!

We also have issues with "unrelated damages". If we repair a quarter that has 3 hours of damages that we are being paid to fix, and it has 4 hours of "unrelated damages", we have to fix it all and only get paid for the 3 hours of damage. Bumper covers are a real headache because of that stuff anyway, and then they are expected to fit perfect, no matter what is normal for that model.

Custom work is so much easier. If they want perfection, they just have to have the right checkbook.

Aaron
 
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