GLA - My hot red dream is ruined.....

[FarHumpers]

I have a 2020 GLA 180 - in red, love this car, well, I did until I spotted hundreds of tiny bubbles under the bonnet paintwork....then the side arches, then the doors, roof....in fact every panel. Merc have agreed to re-paint the car, but that's not for three months. Just wondered if this is standard practice in the motor industry. Surely I could have crashed my car and gotten it fixed quicker?

 

[Benz17]

Sorry to hear of your woes, red paint syndrome sadly, you should count yourself lucky, others have not been sadly.

3 months does seem a long while.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[liamt]

Out of interest what colour type of red is the car? It is well documented that certain types of Red on Mercedes cars are prone to bubbling/blistering. I suspect the three months wait is due to a backlog of claims/bodyshop availability etc. I haven't seen any cases of Patagonia Red yet (colour of my A35) and I hope it stays that way.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Welcome to MBClub. Sorry to hear about this. How long have you owned the car?

Three months seems like a long time but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mercedes build in a short delay to guard against people buying a cheap car with a known problem, getting Mercedes to fix it, and then flip it for profit.

It used to be an issue with Fire Opal Red going back maybe even ten years or maybe more. Surprised it hasn’t been sorted by now though, especially with happening a couple of years after it was built.

 

[KakaAclass]

I have a 2020 GLA 180 - in red, love this car, well, I did until I spotted hundreds of tiny bubbles under the bonnet paintwork....then the side arches, then the doors, roof....in fact every panel. Merc have agreed to re-paint the car, but that's not for three months. Just wondered if this is standard practice in the motor industry. Surely I could have crashed my car and gotten it fixed quicker?

Is the colour Jupiter Red?

 

[markjay]

Welcome.

Mercedes Benz agreed to respray your car in three month's time? Consider yourself very very lucky. That's about the best outcome an owner of a Red Mercedes in your situation can possibly hope for.

Don't take my word for it... have a search on this forum.

 

[markjay]

Also, my understanding is that they will only respray metal panels, and so the bumpers (and any spoilers, side skirts, etc) won't be resprayed as they are made of plastic (as are the wing mirror covers). Check with the dealer if this is indeed the case. And, if you do want to have any excluded items resprayed (e.g. to cover scratches etc), then you could ask the body shop for a quote and pay them to also respray the plastic parts at the same time.

 

[ricky s]

I have a 2020 GLA 180 - in red, love this car, well, I did until I spotted hundreds of tiny bubbles under the bonnet paintwork....then the side arches, then the doors, roof....in fact every panel. Merc have agreed to re-paint the car, but that's not for three months. Just wondered if this is standard practice in the motor industry. Surely I could have crashed my car and gotten it fixed quicker?

Not sure which colour red you have, but prime candidate for this issue is 'Fire opal red', well documented issue, it's a lovely colour, but alas it is at fault, my wifes SLK55 suffered this issue, putting this issue to them, (local MB), the service manager told me that MB had over 2200 of these cars to repaint, this is back in 2018, local Mercedes dealership arranged to have it resprayed, apparently back to metal, car was 8 weeks away, but they only painted the metal panels, not the plastic trims. When the car came back, I inspected it in detail, and all looked good, but 3 months later we noticed that the trim and the new paint were a mismatch, Mercedes at that point did not want to know, so we paid out £600 to have the front grill and 2 side trims repainted, the sprayers did a great job, but we had lost heart with the car, sold it and moved on. Just be aware of this metal and plastic repainting. Sods law is that there is 2 fire opal red SLK200 within a walk my wife and myself go on, and neither of them have this issue, and our gardener has a B200 in same colour, again with no issue, so it seems your either lucky, or unlucky, hope your repair goes well.

 

[tonysmb]

I am really surprised that this issue is still arising on what is a relatively new car. Just out of interest OP, have you had the car from new, so know its bodywork history?

Whilst it's really annoying, at least MB appear to have agreed a resolution without much, if any, argument, which is good.

 

[liamt]

I am really surprised that this issue is still arising on what is a relatively new car. Just out of interest OP, have you had the car from new, so know its bodywork history?

Whilst it's really annoying, at least MB appear to have agreed a resolution without much, if any, argument, which is good.

I suspect the car is still just within the warranty period being a 2020 model, therefore I would expect Mercedes to action this given how young the car is.

I think the older the car becomes the more challenging it is to get any action taken as Mercedes start to scrutinise the service/bodywork repair history even more. There appears to be mixed results in that department. I imagine it boils down to how good your dealer is dealing with Mercedes Warranty claims

 

[Benz17]

What is it with these red paints, this being a 2020 car, and others have been older, one would have thought on the newer cars MB would have eradicated this problem.

 

[BigJase88]

It will be Jupiter Red.

Hence why it has now been replaced with the darker Patagonia Red.

 

[Petrol Pete]

This was common a while back , you can still see faded red Vauxhalls tootling around with shiny plastic bits 2 totally different paint procedures. .

 

[DSM10000]

I have a 2020 GLA 180 - in red, love this car, well, I did until I spotted hundreds of tiny bubbles under the bonnet paintwork....then the side arches, then the doors, roof....in fact every panel. Merc have agreed to re-paint the car, but that's not for three months. Just wondered if this is standard practice in the motor industry. Surely I could have crashed my car and gotten it fixed quicker?

They have offered to repaint it at no cost. I would be happy with that.

As for waiting for 3 months, I do not see that as unreasonable.

They will need to find a body shop that is able to accommodate the car for a bare metal respray and that will tie up a preparation bay for some time.

 

[markjay]

The OP lost interest.........

 

[st13phil]

Also, my understanding is that they will only respray metal panels, and so the bumpers (and any spoilers, side skirts, etc) won't be resprayed as they are made of plastic (as are the wing mirror covers).

Bear in mind also that red can be a nightmare to colour match, and as the paint ages it will change shade. If MB will only pay for the metal to be repainted and I was intending to keep the car, I’d swallow hard and pay for the plastic panels to be done at the same time.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Bear in mind also that red can be a nightmare to colour match, and as the paint ages it will change shade. If MB will only pay for the metal to be repainted and I was intending to keep the car, I’d swallow hard and pay for the plastic panels to be done at the same time.

Good advice