V8 Vantage paint repair

[ledger]

Hi all,

I'm in the market for a 4.3 V8 vantage, I've seen a couple, have been given loads of helpful advise my BiggaJ (thanks once again) and spoken to / visited a few of the well known independents ( Quantum, Pugsley and Lewis, McGurk).

There's a car I'm interested in, however it has quite a few stone chips on the front bumper, one large one on the front wing, not unexpected for a car of its age. However it also has a patch on the front lip of the bonnet where it meets the wing where the paint and the aluminium seem to have reacted, it looks similar to what I have seen on other cars around the door handles. Other than that it seems like a genuine car, FSH, low mileage etc.

The car is Titanium silver and the chips are perhaps more noticeable as the primer seems to be a dark colour which has been exposed, I guess my questions are

- has anyone any experience of getting stone chips successfully repaired or am I looking at a bumper / part wing respray if I wanted the chips removed ?
- if I was to get the front of the bonnet repaired is it a more complicated (expensive) repair as a result of the aluminium / paint reaction or no different from a normal repair.

thanks

[stevenichols]

Hi,

Just a word of warning, I had my whole bonnet resprayed due to paint damage around the Aston badge and the bill was £2,000. You could try ChipsAway and get a free quote, but they are not too keen on doing metallics as they are hard to match. A typical Chipsawy bill can be about £300-£350. I think we need to see the damage to get a better idea.

Steve

[LPH]

Where are you based?

I had quite a bit done on my car.

Remove right hand door handle and all components required for repairs to be carried out.
Attend to corrosion around right hand door handle aperture and front lower corner of door skin.
Attend to stone chips on left and right hand rear wheel arches. Left and right hand front wings and front bumper.
Prepare and paint all repairs and colour blend as required.
Machine polish all new paintwork.
Refit car with all removed components.

£1700.

All done at Wikinson's in Derby (next door to Aston Engineering). https://www.wilkinsoncoachbuilders.co.uk/

Was 4 years ago mind but might be worth giving them a call.

[milu]

Bit cheeky this
But mines about to go up for sale
Moved house and don’t really want it outside as discussed in another thread
No paint required! Or anything else that I’m aware of.
Tit silver over Chancellor red.

[ledger]

milu said:

Bit cheeky this
But mines about to go up for sale
Moved house and don’t really want it outside as discussed in another thread
No paint required! Or anything else that I’m aware of.
Tit silver over Chancellor red.

lovely looking car, though looks a lot darker than the one I was interested in

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202404198...

I see from your profile you are in Yorskhire, I'm in South East London, so a bit further than I wanted to go at the moment. I'm also at the lower end of the market budget wise, really looking upto about 30k.

Edited by ledger on Wednesday 24th April 10:59

[ledger]

stevenichols, LPH,

thanks for the input, here are the pictures, there are a lot of chips on the front bumper under the number plate, but I'm less concerned about those







I spoke to a body shop recommended by a fellow PH'er yesterday, without seeing it they said c£900 for the front bumper upto 4k if they needed to spray bumper, bonnet and blend wings.

thanks

[milu]

ledger said:

milu said:

Bit cheeky this
But mines about to go up for sale
Moved house and don’t really want it outside as discussed in another thread
No paint required! Or anything else that I’m aware of.
Tit silver over Chancellor red.

No problem at all. It took quite a bit of will power to even suggest selling lol
Incidentally mine will be sub £30k
It is also the facelifted version over the one in your link
Happy hunting!

lovely looking car, though looks a lot darker than the one I was interested in

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202404198...

I see from your profile you are in Yorskhire, I'm in South East London, so a bit further than I wanted to go at the moment. I'm also at the lower end of the market budget wise, really looking upto about 30k.

Edited by ledger on Wednesday 24th April 10:59

[LPH]

ledger said:

I spoke to a body shop recommended by a fellow PH'er yesterday, without seeing it they said c£900 for the front bumper upto 4k if they needed to spray bumper, bonnet and blend wings.

thanks

The bonnet corrosion is very similar to what was around my door handle and on part of the door skin. Can easily be sorted by a decent paint shop.

[stevenichols]

I agree with LPH - a decent body shop could handle those. It might be worth sending the pix for a Chipsaway quote as well. The quote won't cost anything and will likely be cheaper than a body shop.

[XJR500bhp]

Chipsaway? I guess everything’s relevant and that’ll be a cheap job, but I do feel these cars warrant a better repair than that.

[Krhuangbin]

Forgive my naivety here but why can’t these little patches of corrosion be “smart” repaired, to a high standard? Even HWM offer a smart repair service.

I have a tiny little bit of the door handle corrosion (mines an 18 year old car now) and what’s to stop it being rubbed down and locally repaired for a few hundred quid ..... I’ve heard a lot about the whole side having to be done and many panels having to be blended and almost the entire car having to be lacquered (exaggeration)

[ledger]

Krhuangbin said:

Forgive my naivety here but why can’t these little patches of corrosion be “smart” repaired, to a high standard? Even HWM offer a smart repair service.

I have a tiny little bit of the door handle corrosion (mines an 18 year old car now) and what’s to stop it being rubbed down and locally repaired for a few hundred quid ..... I’ve heard a lot about the whole side having to be done and many panels having to be blended and almost the entire car having to be lacquered (exaggeration)

you may well be correct, I've never had any bodywork done other than when I've been in a crash and the insurance co have taken care of it. That's the reason I started this thread as the car otherwise sounds good, but I was unsure as to how much it would cost to repair the chips.

Thanks for everyone's help, I'm looking at a metallic green car tomorrow, not due to see the car with the chips for another week as its a 3h round trip for me and I cant fit it in any sooner, I'm hoping that the green car tomorrow is as described, in which case I'll go for that.

I may well be back with more questions :-)

thanks all, this seems to be a very helpful / friendly corner of the forums.

[DB531]

Krhuangbin said:

Forgive my naivety here but why can’t these little patches of corrosion be “smart” repaired, to a high standard? Even HWM offer a smart repair service.

I have a tiny little bit of the door handle corrosion (mines an 18 year old car now) and what’s to stop it being rubbed down and locally repaired for a few hundred quid ..... I’ve heard a lot about the whole side having to be done and many panels having to be blended and almost the entire car having to be lacquered (exaggeration)

Depending on where the repair is to be made you probably could and you would no doubt be happy.
To take that approach on a highly visible part of the car, would I am sure leave you rather disappointed with the result, as loosing the blended edge would be almost impossible, and clear lacquer will effect the colour, the time saved, if any, would be relatively small compared to a full panel re lacquer, masking up time would be similar for either repair. In reality the bigger the repair the less noticeable it will be.
In the past when repairing single pack cellulose metallic paint finishes we used to add to the finishing coat a blending clear which was helpful to loose the edge, but then we were painting colour to colour and colour matching was very crude by todays standards.

[Krhuangbin]

DB531 said:

Krhuangbin said:

Forgive my naivety here but why can’t these little patches of corrosion be “smart” repaired, to a high standard? Even HWM offer a smart repair service.

I have a tiny little bit of the door handle corrosion (mines an 18 year old car now) and what’s to stop it being rubbed down and locally repaired for a few hundred quid ..... I’ve heard a lot about the whole side having to be done and many panels having to be blended and almost the entire car having to be lacquered (exaggeration)

Depending on where the repair is to be made you probably could and you would no doubt be happy.
To take that approach on a highly visible part of the car, would I am sure leave you rather disappointed with the result, as loosing the blended edge would be almost impossible, and clear lacquer will effect the colour, the time saved, if any, would be relatively small compared to a full panel re lacquer, masking up time would be similar for either repair. In reality the bigger the repair the less noticeable it will be.
In the past when repairing single pack cellulose metallic paint finishes we used to add to the finishing coat a blending clear which was helpful to loose the edge, but then we were painting colour to colour and colour matching was very crude by todays standards.

Good info thanks

[huesey1974]

Hi,
I have had a few smart repairs on various cars including Maserati/ Mercs etc and you would not know it had been done. As mentioned the matching today is excellent. I received a nice stone chip on my front bumper on my recent euro tour and is getting fixed next week by the same chap I always use for smart repair. See no issues with this as i stated the quality is great.