I received my car on Friday. Went to my friend's work. He is a professional detailer and works for a mazda dealership. Anyhow we decided to debadge the rear of my WRX after undercoating it.

We removed the plastic S U B A R U using a heat gun and fishing line. We had bits of the 2 sided tape remaining and with that we used a solvent that would eat at the glue gently. With some rubbing and solvent we got the 2 sided tape off. Low and behold we found chips of clear coat gone from the paint. So many chips that you can actually see them forming S U B A R U.

Now before we go blaming my buddy, I know he did everything correct as 2 months ago he debadged another brand new WRX.

I have gone and seen one body shop and they have said that I will need to re clear coat the entire trunk. Which means wet sanding the current clear coat and then re applying.

My question is this: 1. Do I go w/ the local body shop and get the trunk re clearcoated?

2. Should I take this up w/ Subaru of Canada/my dealership (fat chance as I debadged the rear myself) I feel it's crappy paint, but in the end the debadging was done.

On a side note when the car was delivered to me, I had washed it the same day and noticed smudges in the trunk and rear bumper. I'm not trying to be anal, but it's just a brand new car!

Not to be a jerk, but how would you phrase that to the dealership.......

"um...yeah.... I used a heat gun and purposly took off the letters.....and then used chemicals on the paint. You should fix it. After all, it's your fault!"

Office space style: "um....yeah...."




Subee paint sucks. Three certainties in life. Death. Taxes. And Subaru paint sucks.

This one will come out of your pocket bud. Sorry. :(

Yeah I've thought of that and that 's why I decided to ask the local body shop first.

However like I said,
"On a side note when the car was delivered to me, I had washed it the same day and noticed smudges in the trunk and rear bumper" I was hoping that while they fixed that, that we could work out a deal and fix my debadging error.

In the end I was looking for a quick solution, like if clear coat could be sparsely put on but it looks like I'm SOL and am going to have to re clear coat it.

That is strange.... Was it the solvent that chipped it? I just kind of rolled it off using my thumb and then used a citrus based solvent to get the rest off. Initially I could see where it was removed, but I just waxed the spot and it went away.

Azuth probably has the right idea. I am sure it was the glue that pulled off the chips. But for that to happen it must have been some kind of messed up trunk job. I would be asking if there was a problem with the trunk before you bought it. dare I say......accident? messed it up on a test drive,.....backed into a door while putting it in the showroom.....little old lady backed into it in the lot while test driving a forester......


I don't know, given the fact the Subaru paint sucks so bad, I would put several coats of wax on it and call it good. And then take it for a spirited run to remind yourself of what Subaru IS good at.

The car came in Sept. I was there the day they got it in. After PDI the car sat in the dealership's garage w/ still the tape on. It had the tape on right up to the day before I picked it up.

The solvent that was used is a professional industrial type. It is made to eat up any glue slowy. It didn't harm the paint.

I'm attesting this to just bad paint on the part of subaru. I wish it was the solvent, but we used the same stuff on another WRX and it was fine.



On a funny note I was watching AutoWeek on Speedvision last week and they had a quote saying that "it looks like subaru put on just enough paint to make their car look blue" ouch, that's got to hurt.

I have a silver WRX, I also debadged about a month after I got my car. Maybe you did it too soon...before the paint fully cures. I used dental floss (didnt have fishing line) I must have used like 50 feet of it cuz it kept breaking. I used a hairdryer to heat it up and flossed it all off. Took me about 15-20 minutes. The remaining goop/glue came off with WD-40 with lots of scrubbing. I washed the area and waxed it with meguiars. You cant even tell there was ever any letters/badging there. No chips, no scratches, no marks. You musta done sumthin wrong.

I got a quote of $300 cdn. to re clearcoat the trunk. (removal of spoiler, wet sand trunk.)

Auggh. Just dropped $40 g cdn, plus additional 6g's on Sti lights/Rims. This car is costing a lot initially!

Would it really be that bad to leave the trunk w/ the chips? Only problem is, is that it is a new car and I don't think I can bare to leave it like that.

If I were you I'd just forget about it you can, check out the piant on my car this sunday. It's covered in chips etc just wait until you have had the car a couple of years and get the whole dam thing resprayed that what I'm goin to do.

Dear Subaru:

You have crappy paint.



Sincerely,
Me.






:D :D :D :D :D :D :D

If you can't even live with a few paint chips in the trunk, then I say you should just repaint your whole car while you're at it :lol:

i second the crappy paint:D GMC, i say take it to scooby and tell them what happened, it wouldn't hurt! we'll both go and bitch, cause my car was delieved to me even worse then your car:mad: lets go, talk to uncle ron!!

One of the guys in the I-club TX group told me that after he debadged his trunk he could see where "subaru" used to be and it showed up in "faint" letters. He told me he waxed that part of his trunk six times and I have seen his car since, you can never tell it was there.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

I am the "professional" detailer that did the debadging. I have debadged many cars and this is the first time this has ever happened. I used the same technique as in the past, heat, fishing line, adhesive remover and wax afterwards.

Its weird cause the missing clearcoat looks like stuck on glue or something. But if you really look at it, it is missing clearcoat. I don't want to diss the Subaru paint at all (especially since I don't own one and have ragged on my fellow Scooby owners enough in the past already) but geez!:devil:

I think the thin paint is a weight reduction feature that makes the WRX go so fast!

anywho, www.zucru.com

I agree as I was right there with him the whole time. I'm going to try and wax a good 6 times this wkend in hopes of trying desperately to fill them in. Final option is to goto the 'stealership' next week.

Yeesh they let anyone on this board these days ;)
P_Ice does know what he is doing, I was far les scientific when I did mine and it turned out fine.

Here something that I don't think you have thought about yet. What if the dealership re-cleared the trunk before you took delivery. Have you had a bodyshop take a look at it. It might be that if there were some scratches and they were only going to re-clear the trunk they may have left the letters on when they did it. If that is the case the missing clear isn't missing clear it is new paint that wasn't applied under the existing letters. Just because it was a brand new car does not mean it did not get scratched in shipping and needed to be touched up. Most Dealerships will not admit that this is the case but a good body shop should be able to see if this is the case.

Just a thought

Good luck

Eric

You could always just put the badging back on and live with it for awhile...:)

Zak

badging is toat. I'd have to get new ones.

The chips are part of the original clear coat. One could look at it and you can see the layer it was pulled from.

thanks for the vote of confidence RageHard!

I forgot something Grandmasterchan! I remember at my dealership that we did do a few warranty claims charged to Mazda of Canada involving paint and minor body damage to new cars. It was apparently covered under the warranty and we (the dealership) did not have to pay a thing. We contacted Mazda of Canada, sent the proper forms and voila! Everybody ends up happy... look into that ok? I will TTYL bout it. I TOTALLY forgot bout that!

[cross fingers]pray[/cross fingers]

Here's a good suggestion:

Rebadge it! If its just chipped under the badges, just put them back on.

Dan

I got a good quote today to re clear the rear. I've booked an appointment too. I will however take some pix of the chips this week to show everyone.

I tried waxing it 3 times yesterday..and nothing.

Since the car is so new, you only needed to park it in the sun and use the dental floss... the heat gun might have caused problems.

Since my car is so old, i used some of that "sticker remover" and it worked great. Combined it with some goo gone for the left over stuff, and used an adobe to scrape it off. Cant even tell!

But, my pinstripe did what you are talking about, and its cause the pinstripe was so freakin old and corroded... Wierd.