I had originally planned to get the front end resprayed in a few years but when I traded the carbon hood for the 05 hood the repaint became a priority.
The 05 hood was a fresh respray but it was crap. The paint didn't match and the prep was very poor. Some of the paint actually pulled off when we taped up to paint the underside. There were several chips that were painted over and some waves. There was even some dirt in the paint. Upon sanding I found that they had actually put bondo over the factory clearcoat to fill in 2 deep rock dents.
The front bumper had some stress cracks in the paint from when I smacked a deer last october. The bumper had previously been repainted in 2006 so I had 2 layers of paint to sand through.
A good friend of mine had went to school for bodywork and worked at a body shop for a few years. We decided to tackle this in his garage. We went to a paint shop and started spending money. We had them give us a sample of the oem paint code, the variant of the oem paint code, and also use their gun to scan the paint and give us that sample. Out of all three the oem variant is the closest match so we went with it.
The teardown. The sideskirts, fenders, fender liners, hood, bumper, and trunk are all removed. Everything but the sideskirts will be getting some work.
The hood.
I started sanding on this with a DA. The whole hood had aftermarket clear, aftermarket basecoat, aftermarket primer, factory clear, factory basecoat, factory primer to get through so it took some time. The whole front of the hood had a nice layer of bondo on it OVER the factory clear. Crap prepwork by the other bodyshop.
Halfway done.
Notice the tan dot in on the left side of this photo above the scoop...that was a rock dent filled with bondo.
With the bondo removed this is what it looked like...unacceptable. The fact that they put bondo over the factory clear blew our mine. The front portion of the hood right above the latch was also dented down a tad. All we could tell is that someone pushed down in that area to shut the hood... repeatedly.
For this area the metal needed to be pulled back out. Here is the same area after the metal was pulled out.
Not perfect...but much better. Now there will not be a 1/4" deep crater filled with bondo.
Another shot.
Since the hood was going to have some bondo anyway I made another decision...
Notice anything here?
Maybe this will help...
The 05 hood was a fresh respray but it was crap. The paint didn't match and the prep was very poor. Some of the paint actually pulled off when we taped up to paint the underside. There were several chips that were painted over and some waves. There was even some dirt in the paint. Upon sanding I found that they had actually put bondo over the factory clearcoat to fill in 2 deep rock dents.
The front bumper had some stress cracks in the paint from when I smacked a deer last october. The bumper had previously been repainted in 2006 so I had 2 layers of paint to sand through.
A good friend of mine had went to school for bodywork and worked at a body shop for a few years. We decided to tackle this in his garage. We went to a paint shop and started spending money. We had them give us a sample of the oem paint code, the variant of the oem paint code, and also use their gun to scan the paint and give us that sample. Out of all three the oem variant is the closest match so we went with it.
The teardown. The sideskirts, fenders, fender liners, hood, bumper, and trunk are all removed. Everything but the sideskirts will be getting some work.
The hood.
I started sanding on this with a DA. The whole hood had aftermarket clear, aftermarket basecoat, aftermarket primer, factory clear, factory basecoat, factory primer to get through so it took some time. The whole front of the hood had a nice layer of bondo on it OVER the factory clear. Crap prepwork by the other bodyshop.
Halfway done.
Notice the tan dot in on the left side of this photo above the scoop...that was a rock dent filled with bondo.
With the bondo removed this is what it looked like...unacceptable. The fact that they put bondo over the factory clear blew our mine. The front portion of the hood right above the latch was also dented down a tad. All we could tell is that someone pushed down in that area to shut the hood... repeatedly.
For this area the metal needed to be pulled back out. Here is the same area after the metal was pulled out.
Not perfect...but much better. Now there will not be a 1/4" deep crater filled with bondo.
Another shot.
Since the hood was going to have some bondo anyway I made another decision...
Notice anything here?
Maybe this will help...