im after some advice and after trolling around for a bit decided to give it a crack..

a few weeks ago, some idiot decided to put paint stripper over my car and unfortunately my insurance won't cover this.
there are marks on 80% of the panels, some stripped right down to the body, and some are just slight surface marks ranging from the size of a 50c piece, right up to a big mark on the bonnet about 30 cm long.

my car is a 2002 xr6 tickford au series 3

i have 2 questions

1 - should i cut my loses and go for a whole body respray? or would i be able to just prep it and use touch up paint all over?

1.5 - what would i be looking at pricewise for a complete respray?

2 - in the meantime, should i be putting anything on the marks to prevent the weather getting to it??

thanks guys

Dont bother with touch up paint, it wont blend in well enough. Door closed respray you are looking around $3K, depending who you went with they might bring the csot down a bit if you do alot of prep work yourself and drive it over, though unless you know what youre doing I wouldnt bother because theyll jsut have to go over it again anyway. That sucks a** bigtime though, what the f**k is insurance for then? Unless its down to metal in some places dont bother about trying to seal it, if it IS down to metal, just wipe it over with some prepsol or thinners then spray a bit of cheapo paint over it to seal it.

thanks man,

so any advice on what to do with it in the meantime? (i dont have cash for a respray right now!)
do i have to put anything on it to make sure i dont damage it anymore?

YEah as I said earlier just make sure its clean if its down to metal and just use some cheapo paint or anything really to seal it from surface rust. Really need pics but exactly how bad is it? If it needds to be taken back to near metal and filled you can probably add another $1000 on top of that.

Seems like your in a bit of a pickel mate. Look honestly a re-spray wont be cheap, they will pretty much spray the whole car to make sure they blend all the pannels, if you dont get them to blend the pannels and you choose to use a cheap spray job option, you mite have trouble selling it in the future.
Question? what color is your car? is it a metallic or a flat colour such as white or red. Believe it or not flat colours most of the times you will not have to blend the adjastent pannels but flat colour is more expensive then metalics? Keep that in mind.

Options you have: You can use a etch primer which you can buy in an aerisol from supercheap for around $10. Use a skotchy to wrap the damage, mask around the damage with some newspaper and tape and spray some on. This will help out for a while BUT you will eventually get surface rust under it.

Ask yourself is it worth re-spraying. I know its a hard thing but how much did you pay for the AU? And the biggest question, honestly how long are you planning on keeping it? If you wanna keep it and run it to the ground then by all means get sprayed when you have the dosh. If you bought it cheap and your planning on selling it in 12 months, is it worth spending 3-4 K and only selling it for 5-6k???

Now if you do wanna keep it and wanting to re-spray it no matter how you look at it, youll be up for a couple grand. Now to cut prices down. If you want it looking nice DO NOT GET A CHEAP BACK YARDY. Shop around a few different smash repair mobs in your town. Take your time trying to find one who actually gives a dam about your car. Notice there shops, if there dirty looking shops with car parts lieing around, bog up jobs sitting outside then dont use these shops as there work may be a bit ruff. Look for clean tidy smash repair shop.
Cut the price down by stripping your door trims, door handels, belt moulds, door moulds, bumper bars, bonnet skirters, brake lights ect ect... the more you take of the car the cheaper the job will be for you. Organise a tow truck or a car trailer. If your unsure how to remove door trims, there are stacks of examples on here, and take your time and mark all your bolts and label containers, makes your fitting up job a hell lot eazier.
And finally if you are doing a re-spray and planning to keep your car for a while try and look in to changing your colour... A non factory colour can always hot up the look of your car.

This is all the advice I have, hope it helps out and I wish you and your car the best of luck.
Regards Jared

such a nice car to be ruined, what colour is it?

i would find the f**k who done it and make them pay, and if u don't and u do get it resprayed u wouldn't want it to happen again as it will break your heart

thanks guys for the advice.

the colour is liquid silver.
i took it to a spray place here in canberra when it first happened and he said the same thing, that if i wanted to sell it in 12 months, its not worth getting it sprayed as i wouldnt get the money back.

ill try to get some photos to show everyone what the bastards done. its just a shame as everything else on the car is brand new and in top condition.

i have the same problem with mine, was going to cost me more to touch up my car, so i cut my losses and got my qoute at 3 grand to respray my car, door closed job, inclues the whole body kit, dents pulled, colour coding as well plus the engine bay and the main shell. this is through my painter mate,

but most panal shops would charge more then that,

soo good luck with it

Do you want to make your car glow in the dark? It is easy with http://www.luminophore.org. Luminophore is a powder that needs some transparent base to be mixed with (for example lacquer). The base depends on the surface of the thing you want to make glowing. The quantity of the powder depends on the quantity of the base. You should add 50% of the powder to 100% of the base.
This mixture will display its glowing effect if it is applied to a white base, because as luminophore applied to a white background possesses the highest light output. I can paint not only wheel rims, but also hub-caps, license plate and bumper guard. Luminophore can be used in aerography on the car body.

Last edited by DerekC on Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Good answer there Smithy. I do hope you find who these buggers are Golden as they need some hair remover placed on their heads and see how they like being patch-work bald.

Mate, one other thing you might consider is doing it yourself. I know you are in Canberra but, here in Sydney there is a place called VG auto paints and they have classes held once a month to give people an idea on how to repair and pain their own cars, might be worth signing up and make your way to Sydney on a Saturday for this 3.5 hour course which I might add is FREE...

http://www.vgautopaints.com.au/