Paint Help Needed

Okay so a few months back I was involved in a minor collision. The only damage to the truck was the driver's side door. Everything was acceptable until recently I noticed this "hazy" or dull look to the paint. The best way to tell in the pictures is to look at the house behind me. My question is does the door need a wetsand or is something else at play here? Any advice is appreciated. And yes I will be contacting the body shop at my convenience to get their input as well.

 

That's orange peel.

Nothing you can do about it now. It would have had to be wet sanded when color was sprayed and before clear was applied.

 

If you want to invest significant effort or expense you can try, if the clear coat is the issue (I'm assuming it's the color) then you can take the clear down to a level surface.

You do run the risk of burning through the clear coat.

If it's in the color layer then you'd need to remove the clear, wet sand the color and re spray clear.

So.. technically not impossible, but not without thoughtful work and/or expense.

 

That's what I was thinking, but wasn't 100% sure. Would it be worth mentioning to the shop?

 

Most things are worth mentioning, especially if you aren't happy with it.

Best case they say they will try and minimize it. Worst case they say they can't match the factory paint exactly.

More than likely they won't do anything but it never hurts to voice displeasure with service.

 

Alright, kind of a bummer but it's not too noticeable. Is it common to still have orange peel these days?

 

Super common.

$100k cars have it.

$10k cars have it.

 

I got the orange peel pretty bad on my '14 taco factory paint in some spots. I hear ya. It's annoying. But I second what DCSBMWF said- and even if you don't burn all the way through the clear while trying to make it flat, you'll be left with a suuuuuuper thin clear coat. And then you risk clear coat failure down the road. Unless it's a garage queen, which it's not, your best bet is to simply polish the crap out of it and just get it looking as good as you can. Menzerna makes some good super-fine polishes and I've seen guys use it for exactly this sort of thing. Small bottles for $12 on Autogeek. Keep in mind you're just polishing and not flattening. Course, then you're gonna want to polish the rest of the truck to match!

 

In my other thread, someone commented that the house roofline appeared to have solvent pop. Does anyone have any input on that?

 

Having dealt with body shops before, Id call insurance and tell them the finish doesn't match your front door. Repairs are guaranteed for life, and if its the rear door you are talking about having repaired, it clearly shows orange peel. If the front door is the one that got done, then they did a better job then the factory. But it does look like it had dust in it on the a pillar of the front door.

 

It's actually the front door that got repaired lol So you think it is dust and not solvent pop? I can get some more pictures if that would help

 

http://www.kirkerautomotive.com/html/solvent_pop.html



Looks like dust to me also.

 

Some better up close pics

 

When you run your hand/fingers across it can you feel all those little bumps?

It's hard to tell from the pics, but my knee jerk here is to suggest that you should be going back to the shop with that one. Orange peel is one thing, a contaminated surface is another. You wanna get it straightened out while you can I think.

What do you think, guys? Could it be Overspray?

 

From what I can tell, it's not protruding the surface. I cannot feel the bumps by hand if that helps

 

Could be dust buried under the clear coat, so you wouldn't feel it.

Part of me wonders if it wasn't one of those quick paint jobs done outside of the spray booth and got some sanding dust in it.

 

Almost looks like sand more than dust. Yeah, I'd be having the ins company make them do better than that.

 

I Would say take it back. If it is done through insurance there should be a warranty on the work.
It looks like dust/sand on the close-up photos, but it might also be an underlaying contamination issue that can cause flaking in the future.
When I had my bumpers and flares painted the flares looked like that, and it was dust/sand between the paint and clear coat. Guy wanted to just buff it smooth, but I made him sand, paint and clear it.

 

I went by there when they were actually repainting it. It was in the spray booth, but I'm not sure how "clean" the booth itself is

 

Yeah I had the same shop perform the work on my flares and they came out excellent. I know it's a good shop, but I'm not sure who painted it. I plan on going back there next week for a follow up.