Paint that gets ruined near the handle

[Buzzi77]

Good morning everyone, I didn't find answers on the forum
I have had aston martin vantage v8 for less than a month and I have noticed that when I wash it the water gets stuck inside the handle, I have to open it and try to get inside the hole
Is it possible that the standing water under the handle forms the famous swelling of the paint in the handle?
There must be a logical reason

[bogie]

I dont think there is a correlation with water retention for the paint bubbling issue. I had a 2006 Vantage over 9 years and 83k miles, it lived outside mostly and never suffered the paint bubbling issue on doors. It had the common mirror arm corrosion, otherwise all good.

Replaced that car with a 4.7 Vantage for next 8 years and 71k miles. It had the paint bubbling on bottom edge of a door fixed under warranty. The chrome side strakes also corroded on that car by 35k miles, and were replaced under warranty. Must have had a bad batch because the replacement side strakes were showing minor surface corrosion by 60k miles.

I think the paint bubbling issue is caused by poor surface preparation somewhere in the factory paint process. Lotus had/have similar issue on their cars about 10-20 years ago. I also experienced the bubbling paint on an Elise, there was similar speculation on forums for years on the how and why paint was affected.

[VantageHead]

bogie said:

I think the paint bubbling issue is caused by poor surface preparation somewhere in the factory paint process.

This issue even occurs on the ‘Mercedes-based’ Vantage, and at 4 years of age, my 2019 car had to have remedial warranty work to resolve.



I was informed that the issue had been caused by galvanic corrosion (iron & aluminium in contact) following the factory not cleaning away bodywork ‘filings’ before applying paint. It took AML 6 weeks to decide if this was a warranty claim or not - they did pay in the end (nearly £4K to rectify) however I had to pay for re-PPF’ing the newly painted surfaces (door, rear quarter panel and over-door arch).

[bogie]

I cant believe this paint issue is still going on, one would have thought after 20 years the process would have been sorted.

[LTP]

Buzzi77 said:

Good morning everyone, I didn't find answers on the forum
I have had aston martin vantage v8 for less than a month and I have noticed that when I wash it the water gets stuck inside the handle, I have to open it and try to get inside the hole
Is it possible that the standing water under the handle forms the famous swelling of the paint in the handle?
There must be a logical reason

I doubt the water in the handle recess causes the "bubbling" corrosion that some cars suffer from.

However, (as advised by Paddy, aka Francis) I have bought one of these Master Blaster Sidekicks - blows slightly warm, filtered air



I got mine mail order from Slim's detailing, but wherever you get your cleaning kit, I guess

https://www.slimsdetailing.co.uk/products/metro-va...

I use it after every wash to blow water out from behind the brightware, the badges, mirrors, door handles, locks and the joints between the panels, etc. Having towelled the car dry I just move around the car with the Blaster in one hand blowing out all of the joints where water can collect and with a microfibre towel in the other to catch and mop up any water that gets blown out.