NEW blisters on OLD paint, help/advice welcome

[DarrenH]

my car had a full 2k baked respray early in 2008, door shuts, bumpers, everything. the finish was good and had no issues with it

in the last couple of months the entire roof and upper ends of the A, B and C pillars have started getting thousands of blisters on them, comprehensive even spread over all areas listed.





any paint experts seen this before and know whats causing it, guessing the only cure is another respray ??

many thanks

[Jimbo]

When I've seen this in the past it has been one of two things. One being rust of the metal caused by wet flatting the primer and some of the moisture has gone down through the primer and slowly started to rust. Second cause is solvents being trapped and/or a reaction in the underlying paint layers. But yeah your right stripping back and starting again is the only way to permanently get it sorted.

Have to say yours is by far the worst I've seen for the sheer amount of little blisters!

[DarrenH]

thanks for the info jim

[Nemesis]

Can't see why solvents would take 3 years to cause a reaction

Looks like car AIDS

[JustinAudiA4tdi]

To be so uniform and occur at same time, got to be something in the air settled on the paint I think.
3 years on for several areas to go pop at same time is a bit unlikely?

[MattJ]

it is really odd, almost the texture of sandpaper when you rub your hand over it

[Dom]

Have you had a look "under" one of the blisters to see whats inside ?

It looks like someone has sprayed something over the car which has reacted like paint stripper.

If however you burst a pimple and there is a rust spot underneath then obviously something has got under the paint.

Have you approached the garage who did it to see if any other customers have had a similar problem from the same age ? Could be a faulty batch of paint.

[GTE 16v]

My GTE has done exactly that on the rear 1/4s that were painted 5 years ago.

Subscribed to thread.

[RobJenko]

looks to me as above that either trapped moisture has rusted under the primer or its solvent's rising to the surface (could be that they didnt use a suitable thinner in with the two pack ie standard thinners insted of proper 2k thinners) i work in a bodyshop and have seen stuff like this in the past but not this extreme. only answer to repair this would be to sand it all back and start over.

[sach]

When I've seen this in the past it has been one of two things. One being rust of the metal caused by wet flatting the primer and some of the moisture has gone down through the primer and slowly started to rust. Second cause is solvents being trapped and/or a reaction in the underlying paint layers. But yeah your right stripping back and starting again is the only way to permanently get it sorted.

Have to say yours is by far the worst I've seen for the sheer amount of little blisters!

I have to agree, who painted it did they give any garanties on the work? tbh you have to go back to bare metail treat it primer paint clear....

[paddy>gsi/turbo]

worst have ever seen. you say car was painted 3 years ago been on road or in storage? car cover?

its micro blistered theres water trying to find way out.

damp garage (stored)
car cover made metal sweat

[DarrenH]

thanks all

it was painted march 2008, kept outside and used daily until summer 2009, then garaged for 2 years. paint was ok when taken out of storgage 2011

now its done this in the last 3 months, infact it appears to get worse by the week almost like a rash

[Paul]

Never seen anything so bad.

[DarrenH]

just to confuse the investigation its blistering on the wing mirrors and spoiler (i.e non metal parts)

[Jimbo]

just to confuse the investigation its blistering on the wing mirrors and spoiler (i.e non metal parts)

Well that would suggest water/moisture trapped in the substrate layers. But I suppose it's irrelevent what the cause is it's a full respray to sort it and I doubt very much whoever did it will be much help after 3 years mate.

Be worth sanding a mirror cover or similar down to see how deep the blisters go. It is bad I've not seen so many blisters and I'm interested to know what the cause is!

[Benn]

Christ that's a hell of a lot, Solvent pop or trapped water on the primer/paint surface can happen at any time tho. Was the car under cover when off the road? As i've seen that cause the prob as the gasses cant escape.

[DarrenH]

it was in a dry airy garage.

i've been over the car with a fine tooth, there are bubbles on every flat surface (including swage line just below the windows), the roof is the worst like a 40 grade sand paper, however the bonnet and front wings are completely untouched (heat cycles from engine bay perhaps ?) i picked a bubble off the wing mirror and it goes down to the plastic

[cangri]

Looks rather funky!

[Benn]

If you've picked it off and it does right down then it might well be solvent pop. Sadly it will need repainting.

[the-darkhorse]

Water in the airline when painted me thinks ! Needs repainting .
when it was repainted was it done in waterborne or solvent basecoat ????

[Benn]

HHmm didn't think about water in the air...^ Good point.

[Paul]

Still took a while to come out really.