Auto Paint Warranties

Going to have my hood refinished/repainted on my 09 Tundra due to fading of clear coat and paint. Have had several quotes ranging from $550-$750. Some shops have a lifetime guarantee warranty on their paint while others offer a 5-7 year warranty on their paint. I asked one shop why other shops were able to offer lifetime warranty on their paint. His response was that most people do not keep their cars a lifetime and these shops are aware that most people do not keep their vehicles a lifetime. He told me the 5-7 year warranty is similar or better to manufacture warranty.

Should I avoid shops that do not offer a lifetime warranty on their paint? or is it unrealistic to think a paint will last a lifetime?

 

Did you buy your Tundra new? I'm reading a number of posts about paint pealing and I'm think that it's from being repainted. My 07 that spent all of it's life in the South Carolina sun looks as good as the day it left the factory. My gut tells me it's from body shops trying to blend the base coat and not doing a proper job to get the clear coat to bind with the old paint. They assume that you are not going to own the vehicle for another 5 or so years so lifetime really means until you sell it. The next guy isn't going to bother tracking down who did the paint work. So, yes, I agree with the body shop who said it's not worth spending extra money on. That said if that shop truly believed what he said then why not offer a lifetime wwarranty knowing that it'll almost never get used?

 

You need to ask what kind of paint and clear they will be using. There are many brands of paint out there only a few are reputable. We use Glasurit and PPG, solvent Glasurit and water PPG.
Lifetime warranty is a crock of crap on paint, how are we supposed to be responsible for the way someone cares for it. We offer it at our shop, but I disagree with it.

 

Thanks to a life time warranty my 2007 is just about done with a full respray from repairs after an accident that occurred in 2010. I had paint/clear peeling on every panel. Apparently the formulation of the clear was defective. The original shop honored the warranty and really spent some time on it, to get it looking like new. So I’m really happy I had a lifetime warranty on the paint work.

 

If YOU plan to keep the truck for more than 5-7 years then I would say it could be worth it. Where are you located? I got quoted $250 for my hood and $500 for my roof/side sills to get repainted with lifetime warranty.

 

I would be very leery of those quotes, I couldn’t do work that cheap. The hood alone pays 3.9 hr to refinish at $80.00 an hr(46.00 labor +34.00 materials). That equals $312.00 Plus tax, mine is 9.75%, for a total of 342.42. Now you may be getting a buddy deal, but I still I don’t work for free. So let’s say we cut the labor and materials down to 65.00 an hr, that gets us a lot closer to the 250 on the hood 278.21 with tax to be exact. BUT why are we repainting the hood in the first place, there has to be something wrong or we wouldn’t be here right? So now we add some repair labor in there let’s say it’s an easy one(most are not) let’s add 2hr of repair labor only at the buddy rate 35.00 and hr = 70 plus tax 76.82.
So 278.21+76.82=355.03 that’s cheap, but wait there’s more.
We have to add some R&I time for the grill at least, and I would want my hood taken off of the truck for the repairs and paint. You get a much better job that way.
Do you see where I’m going with this? And they are going to give a lifetime warranty?? They have to be using the cheapest paint products available so you will be back for the warranty.
It’s funny that this comes up this morning I have a hood and a roof to do this morning.
I gave this a buddy deal, $500
And this roof is a grand, no side rails witch requires the bed to come off! Look at how they are made
There is no warranty on either, how am I supposed to know what is under what I’m going to fix. I can do it and add a warranty but both would have to chemically striped to bare metal. Now we are talking about some money. I’m not trying to be negative or any of that kinda crap I just see a lot of people get taken advantage of. That 250 hood spray might haunt that truck the rest of its life.
This is just my opinion, I’ve only worked in a body shop my whole life so what do I know right. Please be picky when choosing someone to work on your truck.

 

Leave it be, and wait for the Patina look to settle in.

 

I'm not sure if people understand how modern car paint works. Modern paint consists of multiple layers of paint (sealer, primer, base coat, clear coat). Typically paint needs a sanded surface to stick to. That's fine when painting a whole car but when you are doing body panels you run into a problem. It's almost impossible to get an exact match in the paints. That means if you paint an entire fender with all the layers of paint you would need to put enough layers of base coat to completely cover the coats below it. To avoid this you only paint the base coat and clear coat.

To try and match the previous paint as you get closer to a panel that's not being painted you spray lighter and lighter. At the very edges you spray no base coat. Then you spray the clear on top of it. If you sand all the way to the edge and don't put a layer of base coat you'll be able to see the sanding marks under the clear coat. There's ways around this that a top quality professional knows. The guy who doesn't do it all the time, not so much. Even the best people out there can take short cuts as painting a vehicle is labor intensive. If you don't do it correctly you will get pealing paint but it's going to look good for 5 years or so.

How many people keep a used vehicle that long? 1 out of 10 maybe? So it's kind of like playing the lottery. Charge more than your competition and struggle to get work or hope 9 of them never come back. Most likely if they do you just say "it happens" or "it must have been bad paint" and you paint it a second time. Most likely the same way you painted it the first time. Not saying every body shop are full of lowlifes, far from it.

I know I simplified this by a lot. To detail it correctly I would have had to write a book. As has been said, if you are going to keep your truck then choose a shop that has been in business for a long time and will give you a lifetime warranty (warranty is no good if they change their name every couple years).

 

Just had hood repainted, here is cost breakdown.
Body Labor: 5 hrs @ $48.00/hr
R&I hood and grill assay
Paint Labor: 4 hrs @ $48.00/hr
Paint Supplies: 4 hrs $ 30.00/hr
Paint used Spies Hecker
Warranty on paint 7 year manufacturing warranty

 

This guy gets it.

 

This sounds more like it, labor is correct and more importantly the warranty sounds realistic. At the very least you paid for a proper job and hopefully that’s what you got.

 

Yeah, I get your guy's price break down. I've gotten work done from my guy for many years and have referred 5+ people to him all which have been happy with his work. His paint matching has been pretty solid and I have yet to see his work start to fade or peel after 6+ years. So from a consumer stand point on a used car (11 years old) I feel more reluctant to go the cheaper route and get it repainted again at 7+ year mark or whenever it does go bad. Even if the warranty isn't 100% covered, at the rate of how long his work is lasting and price point, i'm looking at 12+ years of good looking paint at the same price point you guys are stating. I understand your guy's price point and its appropriate for a certain type of consumers but where i'm from where accidents are a daily occurrence, rock and debris chips, etc at any given time, I can't see myself to spend $500 on just the hood. It is more than likely going to get banged up in just the first year of SoCal freeway driving. Just my .02 cents.