# DIY Spot painting/Touchup Help!



## Flakey (May 5, 2013)

I have a small Almond sized spot on my hood that has lost clear and paint. It may start rusting soon but some primer is still there. I don't want to get the entire panel repainted. I googled and several brands are selling the exact paint color and clear coat as a kit. Do these work well and can be used by somebody with no experience in painting?

I can machine polish using compounds and polishes after the touchup to blend it with the rest of the panel. What all do I need - Exact paint as per factory code, Clear Coat, anything else? (Primer, Filler etc.)


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## SunnyBoi (Apr 25, 2013)

Bad luck bud. I've struck through the clear coat on many places on my hood and I've tried putting a fresh layer of clear but it made no difference to the blemish.

Only viable option is to respray the panel.


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## Flakey (May 5, 2013)

SunnyBoi said:


> Bad luck bud. I've struck through the clear coat on many places on my hood and I've tried putting a fresh layer of clear but it made no difference to the blemish.
> 
> Only viable option is to respray the panel.


It's not a paint burn. Some other vehicle or something scraped against my car while it was parked at work. The clear is gone but the paint is still there but there is a color mismatch with the rest of the panel.

I was looking at something like this http://www.paints4u.com/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=6930


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## Otto (Feb 2, 2013)

You do not NEED to respray the whole panel.
That is a statement used many a time when in fact I have, many a time blended repairs on panels which even people in the trade cannot identify.

To summarise it is highly unlikely that someone without years of experience will be able to blend the repair.

It depends on the panel, type of colour and clarity of rest of the paint etc.

I cannot comment on the kits you buy off ebay but I would say I have personally found that any paint that has NOT come from a professional paint shop has been below the standard that I would expect as satisfactory in terms of colour match, ease of blending and coverage. Some basic colours such as flat red, white and black can be okay when conducting a small repair such as stone chips or a scratch but when it comes to painting a portion of a panel I wouldn't even bother with anything else. It is not expensive as people think for professional paint= Dependent on colour but a good average is around £60 per litre for metallic. Buy that in a smaller quantity and you can see its not a bank breaker considering 200ml would be enough for many small repairs. It is debatable whether an almond sized defect can be repaired by using touch up and wet sanding etc.

It is also highly dependent on how precise you require the repair to be. On my daily driver I will stone chips and scratches using paint and wet sanding. This does not give a 100% perfect finish but it is good enough for me because I drive the car a lot and naturally it will acquire stone chips, dents and scratches on a regular basis. It would not be viable for me to respray everytime this happens or I'll be painting it all the time.

It would be really helpful if you could get a pic up of the area in detail and the general area in good lighting so some better advice can be given. If you get some pics pm me and I will come back to the thread and offer any advice where I can.


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

a smart repair will cost you around £40 and will be 99% undetectable. you could touch it up with a £5 kit and see how it looks, you may be surprised!

you can get quality base coat for about £30 a litre so its only pennies to blow that size in:thumb:

cheers


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## robdcfc (Sep 17, 2012)

XRDAN said:


> a smart repair will cost you around £40 and will be 99% undetectable. you could touch it up with a £5 kit and see how it looks, you may be surprised!
> 
> you can get quality base coat for about £30 a litre so its only pennies to blow that size in:thumb:
> 
> cheers


A smart repair will cost how much???

We arent registered charities you know


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

robdcfc said:


> A smart repair will cost how much???
> 
> We arent registered charities you know


I have in the past paid about that for a small repair yes, maybe they cut some corners maybe they fancied me, I dont know but the finish was fine.

how much would you be charging for a almond size repair?


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

XRDAN said:


> a smart repair will cost you around £40 and will be 99% undetectable. cheers


Always makes me laugh when people come up with such a low figure for the cost of a smart repair.

In all seriousness the figure quoted would only just about cover the cost of a call out charge of a plumber - and that's before he actually does any work - yet some people think that for the same price you can call someone out to spend a minimum of 2 to 3 hours (on a simple job) carrying out a repair using specialist and expensive equipment and products. 

Simple business economics dictate that if a guy were charging £40 per job he would have to be using the very cheapest of products and equipment and he'd be rushing his jobs to try and keep his business afloat on what would work out to be (including travelling time) about £10 an hour before expenses !!!! 
On a single job even the consumables (the stuff you chuck away) such as masking tape, masking paper, wet'n'dry, cleaning cloths, gun wash, etc, etc could come close to £40 - that's without primer, paint, lacquer.
But before buying any consumables or products he'd probably be running at a loss on £10 an hour - his on-going expenses are/should include vehicle insurance, fuel, road tax, tools & equipment insurance, public liability insurance, personal tax, national insurance and a good much more - and £10 an hour won't cover that lot!

The maths aren't that difficult to work out that a successfully run business capable of completing quality jobs carried out by a proficient professional have to charge considerably more than £40 per job!


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

XRDAN said:


> how much would you be charging for a almond size repair?


The size of the damage isn't the determining factor when it comes to pricing.
What colour and what & where the damage is kind of determines how long the repair will take, and time taken is largely what pricing is based on.
For instance you can have a large piece of damage that's an easy colour on an easily repairable area which will make it a relatively quick and easy job. Conversely small damage on a difficult area in a difficult to blend colour will make it a difficult and time consuming job.
You've only got to look at the 'Scratch and stone chip removal' thread to see that some people spend hours and hours and hours correctly fixing a single chip. 
If charging were to only be done only by the size of damage then a repairer might see himself charging £10 for say 5 hours work perfectly fixing small a chip and £600 for say 3 hours work fixing a large yet simple scuff on a bumper.
In the real world people don't usually want to pay for even a quick and basic stone chip repair which may take just an hour - because making it cost effective from a running a business point of view to go out and do an hours work and travel home again and to charge say £40 wouldn't be unreasonable. Similarly it would silly to expect too many people to pay out £600 for a large bumper scuff that may take less than 3 hours to fix.


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## robdcfc (Sep 17, 2012)

^^^^^^^ what he said!!

On a bonnet I would not even attempt a blow in as its not correct procedure to do so, I would charge between £250-£350 plus vat to repaint the bonnet and if reqd blend a wing.

I will not do blends on bonnets(or roofs) as after a while it will be visible due to the nature of the location of the panel.

I would rather do that than have people complaining that the repair is no good 6 months or a year down the line as I value my professional reputation more than making £100 on a quick repair.


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

squiggs said:


> Always makes me laugh when people come up with such a low figure for the cost of a smart repair.
> 
> In all seriousness the figure quoted would only just about cover the cost of a call out charge of a plumber - and that's before he actually does any work - yet some people think that for the same price you can call someone out to spend a minimum of 2 to 3 hours (on a simple job) carrying out a repair using specialist and expensive equipment and products.
> 
> ...


That is an interesting insight into the SMART business:thumb:

I can understand every job is different and so are the costs, and of course you have overheads but are you saying under no circumstances you would charge 40-50 for a repair? if you break it down of course there is not a lot of profit in it. Is it so different to any other trade? how much does an electrician make simply adding an extra socket for £20, the next job might be a 2k re wire.

ive had 2 quotes for the same job in the past both at respectable bodyshops, one £360 cash, the other £1200, you get what you pay for so i went with the cheap one and im over the moon with it:lol:

Im not trying to argue by the way, im genuinely interested and you will have more knowledge on the subject for sure

cheers


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

squiggs said:


> The maths aren't that difficult to work out that a successfully run business capable of completing quality jobs carried out by a proficient professional have to charge considerably more than £40 per job!


I wasn't suggesting you could successfully run a business capable of completing quality jobs carried out by a proficient professional for £40 per job! some invoices should be small and some large and all the customers happy:thumb:


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## robdcfc (Sep 17, 2012)

XRDAN said:


> That is an interesting insight into the SMART business:thumb:
> 
> I can understand every job is different and so are the costs, and of course you have overheads but are you saying under no circumstances you would charge 40-50 for a repair? if you break it down of course there is not a lot of profit in it. Is it so different to any other trade? how much does an electrician make simply adding an extra socket for £20, the next job might be a 2k re wire.
> 
> ...


At £40-50 there is NO profit never mind a little, the example you used is a poor one as a Spark can just put in an extra socket for £20 using less than £5 of materials and in 30 mins or so if they are already there doing another job in the vicinity of the new socket point.

Also £360 cash v £1200 done legally is no comparision, I know people think cash is king but do you realise that you can also end up in court for offering to pay cash and avoid the vat as well as the person that took it?

Cash jobs are normally done by people that are employed by the business and so dont have to pay the associated overheads, including materials as they nick them from the boss!

I know one of my staff that left last year certainly did some cash jobs for peanuts as I have had the customers knocking on my door wanting things put right , they have been told to either go forth and multiply or I can rectify for X amount.

The job was nothing to do with me in the first place.

What you have paid for is labour and nothing else trust me Ive been there with staff and bought the tshirt.


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

It's a case of what's cost effective ..... sometimes you might go out to quote on a job and you simply know that you can't charge anymore than £40 - £50, whilst you're there and if you've got some spare time you may as well do it - something is better than nothing :thumb:but if I go out to quote, find out it's only going to be £40 - £50 job that I can't do there and then, then quite simply I have to increase the price if only to cover my travelling time to go back to the job. (But such low priced jobs are very rare simply because of the costs & time involved.) 
A sustainable business (any business) can't survive on low income jobs that don't even pay the overheads.
In general to keep my business going, to cover products, consumables, fixed overheads (tax, NI, insurance etc, etc) and earn a living wage I find I have to charge about £50 per hour with the average repair taking about 3 hours.


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

robdcfc said:


> At £40-50 there is NO profit never mind a little


What would you set your minimum charge at?

my point with the spark is that if you think about it its not really worth any tradesman doing the little jobs when you start thinking about the overheads etc but some are happy to do them some are not.

I think the odd small job is ok as long as your not relying on them?

perhaps I shoulnt have put the op's almond size repair in this category.

In terms of the work I had done, I was given a quote and accepted it, and was given a receipt, maybe i did brake the law but il have to like with it!


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

squiggs said:


> It's a case of what's cost effective ..... sometimes you might go out to quote on a job and you simply know that you can't charge anymore than £40 - £50, whilst you're there and if you've got some spare time you may as well do it - something is better than nothing :thumb:but if I go out to quote, find out it's only going to be £40 - £50 job that I can't do there and then, then quite simply I have to increase the price if only to cover my travelling time to go back to the job. (But such low priced jobs are very rare simply because of the costs & time involved.)
> A sustainable business (any business) can't survive on low income jobs that don't even pay the overheads.
> In general to keep my business going, to cover products, consumables, fixed overheads (tax, NI, insurance etc, etc) and earn a living wage I find I have to charge about £50 per hour with the average repair taking about 3 hours.


do you work for yourself? would you class an average 3hr job as half a days work, with travel etc ?

cheers:thumb:


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

Yes 3 hrs work probably equates to half a days work BUT it's rarely a 9 to 5 job!
Getting enough jobs and/or having jobs close enough to travel to and/or managing your diary to produce 'full days' is an on going battle that's often lost.


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## Andyb0127 (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm also a smart repairer. But were not mobile as were a smart repair centre so work in a unit. We have three main contracts with Audi, stratstones, grange motors. Our pricing depends in the size of the job, a bumper corner would be £150-200 depepnding how bad the damage is on average they take 3-4 hours. Granted as were in a unit some of the work the work we do is a little outside what would be a smart repair, but its what ever it takes for us to reach our monthly target. 
For instance I did an Audi Q7 today, o/s/f door repair dent close to the edge of the door, door was smart repaired so didn't paint the whole door. Total time from start to finish was three and a half hours. we then also had to smart repair a scratch on o/s/f bumper corner with took just over two hours. So total time take was five and a half hours, total cost of the job was £400. To cover all our costs inc wages we have to take £1400 per day to make a profit and reach our monthly target. So you can imagine the volume of work we need to do. And rely on our contracts to get us the work. Its not easy sometimes when work has slowed down. 
But there now looking at opening another smart repair centre which will do the same as us, including wheel refurbs, diamond cut alloys, wheel colour changes. And id hate to think what the set up cost is. But as squiggs and rob have said, it certainly would not be jobs for £40 we wouldn't even return a wheel for that.


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