hellasboy

I recently had a fiberglass front bumper painted and installed. A bunch of cracks in the paint formed and they said they would repaint my front bumper. it's been 4 days and now i see the same and MORE cracks in the paint on the bumper, obviously the just painted over the old cracks is paint cracking normal on fiberglass bumpers? if not, what is the cause of this?

thanks.

Guitarman

Sorry, I first need to ask; Is the bumper truly fiberglass or is it urethane plastic? (as oem bumpers are). This matters somewhat.

Not seeing the 'cracks' and not knowing the definite answer to the above yet, I don't know if it's what is referred to as "crazing" or "alligatoring" or simply paint cracks. Regardless though, I believe i can tell you why it is happening a 2nd time;

The shop simply sprayed paint over the existing problem rather than fixing it. Paint will bridge those cracks, NOT fill them in, and when you bridge cracks they will always reappear. They would need to sand the previous cracks down completely, seal it with a 2 part epoxy primer/surfacer, THEN repaint with a paint that has an elastofier (flex agent) added or already contained therein. You should ask them what they did and what they used, after all-you paid for it. They may have cut corners to save them labor $$$, or the painter just had no clue he shouldn't just respray over the cracking.

What originally caused it I can only guess at. Maybe they used a paint without a flex additive, maybe they didn't seal the fiberglass or use the proper primer. Or maybe the fiberglass was too "green" and not fully cured properly before painting was done. The part may be "over stressed" also and not supported enough not to flex. All guesses, not much help I know.

Good luck.

hellasboy

i'll try to get some pictures tommorow. i tried tonight and the cracks didn't show up.

the shop cutting corners is probably the case... i took off my old bumper, put the new one with a minimal number of bolts (so they can take it off easier) and they PAINTED THE KIT WITH THOSE 3 BOLTS and told me they were done
there were even sections that weren't painted... pissed me off. oh, and they didn't initially wetsand or anything like that so all the paint was wavy. sorry, i'm going off on a tangent.

anyways, i'll get pics tommorow.

hellasboy

i'm noticing more "bursts" in the paint (like if a bubble burst) and the cracking is getting more extreme (enough to where i can now see the fiberglass underneath the paint). This is more on the passenger side but it's also on the driver side of the bumper. if it helps, it's been extremely hot lately.

AutoCoutureSC

iTrader: (8)

hey nick, where are the cracks? it's hard to tell with your black paint job. it looks like you have a crack by the high beam?

hellasboy

heh... i know, it's hard for the camera to get the cracks in good detail... i just might take a video tomorrow.

you can see 2 on the left (breaks in the reflection) and a couple right in the middle of the picture.

the high beam doesn't fit 100% in the area... lazy installers i guess. i'm going to see what's going to happen with the body shop and then owrry about it later (in case i need to take off my front bumper, which they never initially did, maybe they didn't the 2nd time... =/ )

oh, and i've already noticed paint chips, less than 150 miles.

Guitarman

Years ago, a good friend and I did a show truck completely in fiberglass, from install to paint, and we both learned an awful lot about it. Sometimes we had to learn the hard way, and fix our mistakes.

Which brings me to the "bubble bursts" and a theory...

Fiberglass resin must fully cure before it's painted. You (or the shop) must sit it out in the sun for a day or 2 (or even a week or more by some people's theories! ) in order for all the bubbles in the resin to work out by the heat. Otherwise, what happens- and this is ESPECIALLY true on a black color- is the black paint draws more heat from the sun , and if the resin air bubbles haven't all come to the surface, guess what? They do then. Right through the paint. This COULD explain what you're seeing.

The cracking could be related, but it's also possible they skipped a step in the prep phase, or a combination of things from prep to the products they used and the fiberglass' tendency to heat cure if it were too "green" (Newly made).

I hope they're willing to do whatever it takes to fix it, for your sake. BTW, your car looks like it deserves the best. I love the SC's, and I love black..

Best of luck.

Baby ///M3

If your body kit is made of fiber glass, then basically you're stuck with the paint quality unless you can find someone who does a superb job on refinishing the fiberglass.

The cracking actually has more to do with the fiberglass itself than the paint shop's work. I've had fiberglass bodykits on my other cars before and they all had same problems. Compare to urethane, fiberglass is not even on its surface and therefore, is a lot less smooth than urethane.

I would recommend urethane bodykits if you want to avoid this problem. The paint adheres to the urethane a lot better than fiberglass. Plus urethane does not crack or break like fiberglass does upon impact.

Hope this helped.

Jon