My paint seems to be very very porrly attached to the F & R flex bumpers - - it comes off way too wasy - - I wam owndering if anyone else is ahving this problem??????

Buddy "parks" behind me at the campsite, forgets to set the brake and his car rolls into my rear bumper. He almost caught it in time but I have 2 chips out of my paint. No dents but it's down to the black (?) plastic. I'm ordering touch up paint.

Bob

Mine scraped off some, when that Escort hit me :(
Of course I'm not complaining since the guardrail then scraped her whole front end off...

Yeah, they are ery touchy. All I did was take out a guard rail at 50mph, and you would not believe how badly the paint reacted! sheesh!

Believe me though, you have nothing to complain about. After said accident I had to get my paint done for a "bargain". Well now, 6 weeks latter, it is chipping, bubbling, peeling, and just overall falling off.

I talked to the guy, and he hinted that you get what you pay for, but in the end said that he would repaint it. But I have to take the bumper on and off. It was a massive job putting the bumper on, with a second person, It will be a several hour job doing it by myself. :( :o :( :o :( :( :(

The Bumper paint is terrible

ONE Track day (damn gravel-kicking-slow-as-turds-Civics!) and there are dozens of little paint chips in my bumper, but only 2 or 3 on my hood.

Arrrgh!

People - lets be serious about this - if this is a commoln occurance we can band together and get all the bumpers repainted

I can see that they did not use a very shophisticated method of attaching the paint to the bear bumper and it peels very ealsily - - TOO easy fo me

any other bad experiences out there?????

Lets start a class action - call some cheap laywers of something . . . .

Help!

Sue'em sue'em all!!!!!!!!:lol: I am happy with my ride.

The paint is chipping of my spats, but that is not a factory paint job, sucks.



Justin

I don't know about bumper, but the entire paint job on the car isn't the greatest. I understand that a factory paint job isn't as good as a good body shop paint job, but the cat came off the dealers lot with bad paint. I am thinking of trying to contacting SOA about the paint problems

After taking possession of my WRX over 3 months ago the first thing I noticed was the poor finish to the paint not only on the exterior of the vehicle, but also in the door areas (discolored and factory paint drips and runs). After several days of driving the vehicle several paint chips formed on the front bumper, and this is without even pushing the car in traffic. After several weeks I got around to waxing the car and found under close inspection a couple areas under the clearcoat where the paint bubbled.
Currently, the front bumper has more chips and scratches in less time than any other car I have ever owned. Actually comparing it to my last car, a 1997 Honda Prelude with a silver exterior, the 3 month old WRX looks worse than after owning the lude for 3 1/2 years. Since I have recently acquired a C-West body kit, I am thinking of having the body shop repaint the front bumper as well as finishing the kit paint & install.

Lets start a class action - call some cheap laywers of something . .

Right...:rolleyes:...Throw in the "faulty" windshields that crack when hit by rocks while you're at it.

I had a problem witht the paint on my 98. I went to the dealership and they took a couple snap shots and sent it to SOA. Let me tell you right now your not going to get them to do a thing. They consider paint a personal problem. My advice is to cut your losses and get it painted at a good body shop.This is one area where Soa will leave you hanging.

Jay Gold - - look it seems to be that the paint on the bumpers is very very porrly bonded to the plastic -- - they use some sort of cheap undercoat and cheap plastic - - I had to do some paint work on the front bumper and had to apply a tacking soulution and special primer to get the paint to stick - -

WHY shoudl we all have to pay to have the bumpers repainted - - if we stick togther we can get subaru to do it for us !!!!

Originally posted by SubEd


Right...:rolleyes:...Throw in the "faulty" windshields that crack when hit by rocks while you're at it.

You seem to have a problem with the fact that some people(myself included) share our problems on this board. You need to check all my posts regarding the window. I stated that I just felt it cracked far too fast. I can tell you I will always have a window "ding" repair kit in my car from this point on. I still say it is either weak or was not fitted correctly.


Waxing my car the first time I noticed lovely orange spots under the clear on my WRB sedan. :mad:

Lets do something about it! Someone out there knows how to get the ball rolling. How do you start a recall especially when it has nothing to do with safety? I know starting a website where people can complain than sending a link to SOA might help. If enough people stand together we could get soon restitution. If not a new paint job at least some money to get one. It is a problem and I am sure SOA knows about it. We paid good money for our cars and should get what we paid for. The car might last 10-15 years but the paint won't last 4? I think that there is something wrong with that.

I completely agree that something should be done. How to do it, I am not completely sure. First, I believe a list should be formed of all owners willing to complain along with documented pics of the damage. Considering all of our WRX's are no more than 4 1/2 months old, this is a very good time to start busting someones chops over this issue.
I have a feeling the first WRX batches released to the US were rushed through the painting process. This is the first Subaru I have owned, as I can not compare to other models(unless I go to the dealership) of the paint finish/quality/thickness.
I actually spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up the car (NEW) to get some masking protective tape off the hood and trunk areas, goopy sealent from between the doors, paint runs on the wheel well area when the rear doors are open (not smooth, rough paint), and then as I mentioned before the bubbles under the clear coat, in several areas.
The biggest complaint I have is I have never parked next to anyone, the car is garage kept, only driven in my spare time or on the weekends and the paint upclose looks like ass in many areas.
:mad: :mad: :mad:

Lets get the head honchos in on this and see what we can do.

You seem to have a problem with the fact that some people(myself included) share our problems on this board.

Sorry, Tex, I have no problem with that. This site fosters a great deal of knowledge amongst owners. What does bother me is the rash of: "This is my first Subie, I don't like the paint, let's sue."

I'm not making excuses for the quality of paint, but it's a known trait. Maybe we should have gotten "organized" over this before...but I hate to see the possibility of litigation thrown around so callously.

I hope your windshield gets fixed and remains crack free. Has anyone inquired about this problem internationally? Glass damage(in my experience) is unpredictable. A chip may crack in minutes, or never. I had a large chip in my 2.5RS that I never repaired because I was SURE a new windshield would be required once it cracked. It never cracked!

Ed

I would PREFER if Subaru qwould simply just pay to have my bumpers re-sprayed properyly - when I paid sticker for the car I did not expect that in a few short baby driven miles the paint would start to peel away on the slightest bumper contact - -- - -

If they son't resolve it the right way -- - - well then we'll just have to see what happens next

I am a lawyer - if they won't statisfy me then i will file a suit - anyone else want to join - let me know

I live in Chicago and my bumper looks like hell. But when I look at other makes on the street--Honda, Toyota--the same age as my car, they look fine--no long black scratches like mine.

I don't expect a German paint job, but I shouldn't lose paint every time I'm nudged by a bad parallel parker.

It was just a matter of time I guess. People parallel parking "by braille" in the City and using my bumpers as stop indicators.

I agree that the paint is a POS especially on the bumpers. Knowing the paint on the Subies was questionable, I invested into the full invisible bra package.

The kit only covered the leading edges and full bumper on the front. So far, no dents scrapes or scratches.

When I had the kit applied, I had the installer put a strip made from stock material along the top face of the back bumper.

The top has been well protected, but now I'm getting chips beneath the protected areas. OEM touchup paint is so thin that it's having a difficult time actually adhering to the black plastic surface. I bought a touch-up kit from our local auto parts to see if I can rough the area up so that it can accept the paint better.

I contacted the vendor where I got my invisible bra and they indicated that they do not have a rear bumper kit at this time. However, if they have a car and enough demand, they could put one together. That's a thought. I checked out the prices for rear bumper kits for other cars and they are about $25-$40 MSRP. Another unkown is how much of the rear bumper it would cover.

Maybe a GB might be in order? Just a thought....

Just gave my yellow, 7 month, 7k mile old WRX a very detailed cleaning today and there wasn't a single chip in the paint, though the headlights had taken a few scratches.

I'd be floored if you guys got anywhere with SOA. It's a pretty hard thing to prove that the product is truly defective. Maybe you'd be wise to consider using some sort of clear bra product and save yourself more frustrations?

Paul

[edit] can't spell

I have had nothing but the most trouble getting the job done right at Classic Subaru. I bought my RS Thanksgiving weekend in 2000. The issue basically began January '01 in regards to my front bumper cover. I did not notice that the bumper cover was really dull so I took it to Classic Subaru and the District Service Manager denied warranty work on the bumper.

Come June, I started noticing my pain bubbling up by the lower portion of the right fog lamp area.

Mid July, I notice when I washed my car, the paint where it was bubbling out came off. This was a 2"x1" AREA and the other being about 1"x1" Area!!!

So frustrated, I took it back to Classic in the first week of August and showed them the issue. Lee Roty said he was going to take care of it, and I come back in the afternoon to pick it up, and they had touched up those two large areas!!! I was insulted!!

I went back to Lee and told him I wanted it professionally done. So he told me to bring it back the friday of the second week in August and leave it all day with him so a mobile paint body dude could come and fix it. I was like cool. I drop it off at 7:30AM. I come back 4:30pm and the car was not even 50% finished!!!! I was there until 7:30pm waiting for my car to get finished. I get it back and the guy only had sprayed the fog light area and that job was still ****ty. Even LEE, the service advisor agreed to it.

To make the long story short, Lee arranged to have the car taken to CAR E.R. in Winter Park (Classic Auto Group Owns them) and have the car there for a week (M-F) to fully strip the bumper and repaint it. Last Week of August this began and got a rental from Classic. Went by CAR E.R. on Wednesday to pick up my checkbook and this gave me an opportunity to inspect the progress and they had only sanded down a 1/3 of the bumper!!!! Got it back that friday at 6pm! when it was supposed to be there in the mid afternoon. Couldn't really inspect it cause it was getting dark and white can be a hard color to inspect for paint innacuracies.

Saturday morning, the paint was chipping off the lip ALREADY and the front bumper cover's paint was cracking already too. Well come to find out as I inspect it carefully, the had not stripped the bumper like they said they would, and the paint that was peeling off from the top of the bumper cover where the headlight and fenders lining is at, was only cleared over iT!!!!

Now I demanded a new bumper cover from Classic Subaru and to have CAR E.R. fix the problem (Car E.R.'s Estimator who assured my satisfaction (yeah right) called Classic and had Lee ask his manager to have the bumper cover replaced under warranty). THE SERVICE MANAGER AT CLASSIC DENIED THE REQUEST!!!!

So I have gone to a couple well known respectable Body Shops here in Orlando and they have all told me that the bumper cover would have to be replaced in order to prevent the paint from peeling again.

Now SOA didn't want to warranty the bumper again, so after a long fight Classic Subaru bought me a new bumper cover on their tab and is now currently being painted by CAR E.R. as we speak.

That's all folks!

Kevin

Yep, crappy paint. Minutes ago, the rear bumper TOUCHED a light pole - the car rolled back slightly after the hand brake was set - and the paint came completely off. The black plastic is showing at the areas where it made contact. The area isn't that big, only couple of size 12 font, but I don't know if the thin touch-up paint will stick.

Another complaint, the touch-up paint is the thinnest I've seen from any manufacturer.

The paint on the bumpers of my Silver Wagon is very thin... I've got all sorts of nicks from rocks hitting the front bumper...

All in all, the paint on the car is not stellar in quality, but the bumpers really have thin paint on them.

My old Sentra SE-R I owned years ago had decent paint on the body, but the bumpers were also thin... when I had the bumpers painted at a body shop, you could tell the quality was MUCH better... more depth and gloss... and this was on a WHITE car!

I've got 3M clear film on the hood and the little pieces next to the headlights, but the bumper was too complex a shape for me to undertake on my own... So, now I have to live with the rock chips...

good luck on coming to a resolution, but I don't see much happening from it... My SE-R had very, VERY thin paint on the rocker panels and they chipped within a few months... the dealer pretty much said that its due to the rocks on the road...

if I ever have to get my front bumper repainted, I will invest in the laser cut 3M front bumper piece and have it put on...

Seems kind of silly to put it on after some chips have accumulated.

I have 2000 miles on my 2 month old WR Blue WRX Wagon. The car scratches when you look at it! I'm going to call my dealer and bitch. Then I'm gonna call SOA and bitch some more. Also my windshield cracked with 800 miles on the car.

I've owned many other cars and this has by far the thinnest paint I've ever seen! I too have a bumber scratch down to the black plastic! I've had a salt rock hit the car and scratch instantly!

Let's sue!!

If we get organized we can do it!!

Let me know.

-Brian

The paint on my hood and quarterpanels chips off quite esily too. I think the best bet is to go down to Mexico and get some good ol lead paint sprayed on. That stuff will outlast the car.

any paint problem must be seen by your area rep through your dealer--you have to show the dealer your paint problem and they will contact the area rep for a contact at your dealer-i am a sdc dealer-we cannot authorize paint repair until the rep sees the car.
dave

Originally posted by PacificMartin
The paint on my hood and quarterpanels chips off quite esily too. I think the best bet is to go down to Mexico and get some good ol lead paint sprayed on. That stuff will outlast the car.
..... If you get your car back........