Ok, so my Corvette has a Maaco paint job that's been on it's way out for the past few years. The back bumper has flexed and paint is peeling off.

There is some underlying body damage in the right rear from the previous owner. The drivers door has a 3 ft crack and paint badly rubbed from sumdumbitch hitting it while parked.

Car has some oxidation from sitting outside and not getting waxed or covered lately.



Neighbor is a contractor and over the past year or so is slowly remodeling his house during the day when I'm not home. I've had to remove overspray and various other crap from my car, and screws/nails from my driveway during this process. Awhile back I told him and the guy running the spray gun at the time that they need to give me a day's notice before spraying so I can cover my car or move it. Hell, they even had the new block wall protected from spray, but not my car sitting next to it.

Last week I find some nice specks all over my entire car, stuck on there much worse than before. I could try and pick them all off by hand, but I'm over it. I tell the neighbor, and after arguing for a few minutes he says he will tell his stucco guy to clean it. I had it parked across the street for a few days at this point.

2 days later I move it in the driveway and see that now it has spray/stucco/paint whatever still on most of it, in addition to some aggressive swirl scratches over half of the car, hood, roof, rear deck, door, basically everywhere except the side of the car that had the most stucco spray. So I envision his guy cleaning it consisted of him rubbing a gritty rag over it for 10 minutes.

This time I tell the neighbor that his guy is doing more harm then good and that I'm going to get the car buffed and ask him to pay for it, that it may cost $200-$300. "Ok, I'll just have him pay for it, he does a lot of work for me so I'll make sure he pays."

Problem is, the paint IMO isn't worth buffing otherwise. But there is no other way to undo this mess. And, I don't know if a detail guy would even touch it due to the other paint issues. I do want to get it painted, and would rather that money, along with the insurance for the door getting cracked, go towards that. I didn't fix the door either because again, the entire car needed some help, so I was hesitant to spend all that effort for just the door. I tend to hold off on projects until I can kill a few birds with one stone, and in the end, I don't get shit done because it turns into a massive project. I even bought all the paint equipment I need to paint the car myself but it's sitting collecting dust, mostly unused.

I don't feel too much like asking him for money if it's not going towards buffing the car though... or if it goes towards paint, because then I look like I'm just out for the cash and I like to keep my neighbors on good terms if at all possible.

I don't know what to do. As of now I need to get a detail guy to come look at it and get their opinion. If the scratches can be halfway buffed and the spray removed and the car look overall better, even if worse in some spots, and he pays for it without a fight then I will rest easy.

The sad part is I've done nothing to damage this car in 10 years of ownership, but everyone else's negligence has done a number on it.

Between the body condition and interior needs I almost feel like buying a creampuff 85-87 even with a dead motor/drivetrain and starting over and swapping parts and selling this one.

Here are pics:

Holy cow....those are some nasty scratches....what did the guy use a rake..? I'd tell the guy you need to get it rubbed out and get the money from him....then go down and get it painted and they will think that the body shop did a great job rubbing it out.....easy peasy...

I guess I would not be at all happy with any neighbor who had that much disregard for my stuff and for not making sure something that important wasn't covered or moved...geez...what if that had been your new Z06?

You can't tell shit from pictures but the scrstches look like they need sanded and with a Maaco job the paint has to be pretty thin.

Normally I'd say you do a lot a track days, so just leave it until you have...a sudden impact

But since it's your neighbor, let him pay for it!

Jayzus! I'd say your neighbor owes you something for all that.

A buff won't remove those scratches in my opinion.

Is the latex or stucco?

If it's stucco, I'd razor blade it off the windows like, now.

this is what home owners insurance is all about.

Well I got it detailed today for $175. The guy said basically the deep scratches are only coming out with a $800 wet sand, which isn't happening on this paint job.

But he did clay the entire car to remove the spray and buffed it, it looks better overall than before, although the scratches are pretty bad if you look close. Not bad in the sun, the car is still a 20 footer. I also got the tint done last month, so the car actually looks better than it has in awhile.

If it had good paint, I'd be sticking it to him for a wet sanding.

Now I just gotta collect.

Quote:


Yeah...good luck with that....

I had a flash back... 1980... Dover Air Force Base.

Specifically, the water tower:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmahaffie/24143189/

The pic is the best I could find on the web... doesn't matter a lot, but, the tower is on the south side of the base. The nearest building is the BX, and the tower is actually another 200'+ to the east, in front of the Commissary.

On this one day, they decided to paint said water tower. It was a normal work day; not a Sunday when everything was closed... And a nice west wind kicked up! Sending white over spray EVERY WHERE!!!

If I had to guess, well over 100 cars were damaged. All got free detailing certificates. And that did fix Mom's car.

But she was livid when she got home!!! She could easily get so wound up over something like this... hates stupid and non-thinking people... and then in her own blind rage, can't see the solution... it's too big a problem to see the solution, it can't be fixed, so let me stay in this blind rage.

I said look, call the base admin office. Tell them what happened. I would also call State Farm...

So she calls the base, is told she wasn't the first to complain, took her name and address, and about 2 weeks later got this cert for a detailing, which did a great job of getting the spots off.

I don't think they had to paint any cars because of this, and there were no scratches in the paint at all. Just white paint spots.

After that, any painting of the water tower was done either on Sunday or the lot downwind was closed.

I borrowed a Porter Cable buffer from a fellow Corvette owner and it did a great job on my dull paint using Meguiar products. The front and back bumpers were really bad though so it did not do so good there. Planning on a repaint this summer and I bought my own Porter Cable knock off from a vendor at Carlisle to do the buffing after I paint it.
See if you can get a local car lot to refer you to their paint guy. They will charge much less than one of the big shops.
Good luck!

Out here, we have a paint shop chain called "One Day Paint."

They are the ones who shot my Vette. I am very happy, except I keep hitting things on the freeway... and losing chunks of paint.

The required paint for our area means water based, and the flex agents aren't up to the task yet... damnit.

Dude your neighbor or his worker is a dick! That looks like it was scratched up on purpose.

I guess I've been lucky with neighbors over the years.

Mike