Clear coat failure

I’m thinking about throwing a wide body on her now. Especially if I’m gonna have to pay a deductible for insurance

 

Bummer! But maybe also a blessing in disguise, there's your paycheck to a repaint. If the Insurance Co doesn't total out the truck over the damages, ask them to cut you a check for the damages. It'd cost you less than $800 to find a good bed w/no damage.

If you're smart about this, you could potentially get a lot done. Like ...

• You could probably find (4) part-out doors from a white 2005-2006 AC for under $500, which is about 1/3 - 1/4 less than a body shop would charge to paint.
• You could probably find a left/rightfender and hood from a white 2005-2006 AC for under $400 which is about 1/2 what a body shop would charge to paint.
• You may be able to also find a nice white AC tailgate and hood for under $200/ea which is at least 1/2 what a body shop would charge to paint.
• If you hang the doors, then take the panels to the body shop and have them repaint the cab and only the cab (no doors, single stage, so basically just the roof and A/B pillars), you're probably looking at $1,000-$1,500 tops, maybe a little more if you ask them to hang the new panels (hood, fenders) and polish it out.
• For my '06 AC, I got quoted $800 to buff out the paint to uniformly shiny again and seal the entire truck, getting the paint back to showroom shine, which you may want to do after paint also, paint shop may charge considerably less. (I said 'fuck that' and did it myself, but was curious how much someone would charge, "time is money" and all, but ... yeah, that's not an $800 job!)
• You could even have them do the wide body parts at the same shop and install, then skip buying the junkyard fenders.

If it were me, I would start hunting for a white Limited model AC parts truck to get your doors and shit, so you can get the upgraded, paint-matched side trim. If you're gonna do the work, why not upgrade in the process? If we knew roundabout where you're located, zip or phone area code, I'm sure some of us could crowdsource a parts truck either via FBM, CL, or car-part.com

Also, it's worth noting, I think your truck has been in an accident or two previously, and was probably repainted. This crack I'm seeing in the door now, that looks like a bad bondo job that's cracking up.

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That’s exactly what I want to do, get a check from the insurance co and just do all the work myself and upgrade while I’m doing it. I’m in 28544 NC, if the paint is two stage I think finding some replacement body pieces is a good way to go. I wish I had documentation of all of the work done on this truck

 

Okay so I got the number 7 and it definitely works better than the turtle wax. I’d say it shined up. @shifty`

 

Not one to want to say, “wait!”, but give it 6-8 weeks. See if it’s still shiny. If it is, and it were my truck, I’d try to peel as much of that failing clearcoat off as possible, which shouldn’t be too hard if they painted it over chalked single stage paint, and polish the entire truck without clear coat.

 

How much should I spend on an orbit polisher. I’m tempted to get the ryobi 150$ polisher idk if that would be over kill but it would probably come in handy later

 

Man, that's a loaded question and you're going to get a wild array of answers if you resort to YouTube. I can't remember the guy I used to watch with a big paint/detailing channel, he'd test all kinds of stuff, including hte China mainland cheapo brands in all kinds of ways, just to give good content.

Personally, this is what I can tell you: https://www.tundras.com/threads/paint-maintenance.103832/#post-2765824

 

Update: Insurance is saying that the accident was partially my fault lmk what you think. Im gonna post the video here. Also truck paint is still shiny from the number 7, also I’m thinking that this is not clear coat coming off maybe it was a wrap?

 

Maybe it was a wrap? But if they cleared over the stock single stage, it’s probably separating and it would look like that. I would get a plastic 3” putty knife and see if you can pretty easily start where it’s flaking at the top of the door and work it under the clear, and peel it off in sheets. If you can, see how hard it’ll be to peel all the clear off the door.

How could someone backing into you possibly be partially your fault? I don’t understand.

 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/08bxSoS7xN3Uf9XwBv18bpVhg

 

Damn. Bummer!

 

Here's a couple of good videos that I recently used when doing paint correction on my niece's white car. The first video is a long but great explanation of the variables in the process.

This second video walks you through everything from washing, claying, compounding, polishing, to waxing.