Pinholes in Laquer coat

[Midland45]

After washing my 04 W209 at the weekend, I was astounded to find small pinholes in the laquer coat on one of the front wings. Carefully checking the rest of the car, I couldn't find any other areas affected by this. I would estimate 50% of the front wing is affected by the pinholing. The car is finished in metallic silver. I'm waiting for Mercedes to ring me back, to arrange a convenient time to view the car. Has anyone else had any troubles with isolated patches like this and can anyone indicate how they'll repair this as I don't think it will polish out.
thanks

 

[Flash]

Dont let them attempt using a buffing machine as a possible fix on the paint as that will just take off alot layers of the paint.

I would insist on a respray and hope that they would do a decent job of blending in the wings with rest of the paintwork.

Are these microscopic pin holes brown my any chance? If they are then I think I know what you mean and MB probaly will not want to know and polishing/waxing by hand does get them out.

 

[MangoMan]

If it is 'pinholing', polishing or buffing won't fix it. This is usually because the contamination would have been on the Basecoat before they applied the Clear, so theoretically the pinhole will go down to the Basecoat. In some cases where it isn't fixed properly, it might eventually de-laminate. Definate re-spray of panel required.

Good Luck. Cheers.

 

[glojo]

04 W209

Has your car got the nano technology top coat? This is the clear lacquer top coat that is applied to newer Mercedes-Benz and offers greater protection of paintwork.

If your car has this new paintwork then you have problems. Paintshops will say they can apply it, but if you carry out a detailed search on this technology you will find that the paint has to be baked (baking again ) at EXTREMELY high temperature.

Any competant workshop will be able to respray your car and match the colour, but unless there has been a scientific breakthrough that eliminates the need to bake this application, then I would take with a huge pinch of salt any claim by a repairer that they can properly apply this new technology.

Good luck with getting the problem resolved and do NOT let anyone fob you off.

John

 

[Satch]

Only one panel eh?

That sounds to me like the vehicle could have suffered minor damage in the transport/delivery process and has been patched up. It happens.

 

[Midland45]

Update

Thanks for the replies. The car was inspected this morning at a Mercedes approved vehicle refinishers. They measured the paint thickness all over the wing which was a consistent thickness, which ruled out any repair work had been done. They tried buffing a small area but quiclky agreed that it was not going to achieve anything. After further discussions, they pronounced it was a case of "primer popping". Their explanation of this was that during manufacture the unboltable panels were primed prior to attachment to the vehicle and that this particular panel had been left with some surface contamination. After attachment to the car the metallic top coat and laquer are applied and baked. The surface contamination has since pushed through the metallic coat and pimpled the laquer. Over a period of time these microscopic pimples have broken off leaving a pinhole in the laquer.
They took digital pics of this, highlighting the areas with a fluoro pen. They agreed the total wing would have to be repainted, fortunately it has not got nano paint and have started the claim process with Mercedes. Hopefully the work will be carried out in about 3 to 4 weeks time.
Fortunately the rest of the car is unaffected, but this seems like a basic error of quality control by Mercedes and I wonder how many other cars there are out there with this problem. Maybe worth people taking a closer look at their cars.
Midland

 

[glojo]

They agreed the total wing would have to be repainted, fortunately it has not got nano paint and have started the claim process with Mercedes. Hopefully the work will be carried out in about 3 to 4 weeks time.

It sounds to me like you have recieved excellent service from your dealership, but what a pity that the situation arose.

Good luck with the repair,
John