Is this a botched paint job by official dealership?

[cupra-nutcracker]

Hi everyone,

I've had a minor accident with my car close to the rear wheel arch, where a scratch caused a paint chip away entirely in about 2cm length (car is insured).

Since it's a new car, I wanted to see what the dealership would say, and they said that in order for that to be repaired by them, they needed to repaint the entire side panel.

After few weeks of waiting for the car, this is what I get. Photo is taken about 18 hours after retrieving the car (I got it in the late afternoon, couldn't see the extent of how amateur it looked to me).

Car has a very visible paint line. I've been told multiple times that VAG group requires painting entire panels in order to be up to standard so they can give warranty on the repairs. My insurance paid quite a hefty sum (in my market) for them to repaint just that part of the rear panel, including rear bumper (it had a scratch in the corner, and they insisted it needed a repaint and not a polish), with these results.

The inside of the door, edge with the outside of the panel is very rough on touch, the entire length it was repainted (I suppose this is lack of experience with a polisher?).

I don't think this is acceptable, but am I off here?

Can someone confirm whether Cupra also respects the VAG document that "paint blending" technique is unaccepted by official dealerships?

I'm really puzzled on what to do about this. I'm just not confident that they have the skills to do this properly, even at a second attempt.

I owned the car since August, it's always in garage and was sent in pristine condition, and I was hoping it'd get done properly.

Thanks everyone, hopefully someone can put my mind at ease

P.S. they billed 8 hours total for the work on the side panel and entire rear bumper (couldn't find paint lines there, so hopefully they repainted it in entirety)

 

[Chris Bartram]

That looks unacceptable to me.

If the entire panel should have been painted, then why the line halfway down a panel?

IME it's unusual for dealers to have their own bodyshop, they usually contract out.

 

[cupra-nutcracker]

That looks unacceptable to me.

If the entire panel should have been painted, then why the line halfway down a panel?

IME it's unusual for dealers to have their own bodyshop, they usually contract out.

Basically they painted halfway, they didn't paint the entire panel, that's the whole issue. The line is visible on the inside of the door as well.
They covered about 2-4mm behind the doors on the side, masked the rest off. I can easily feel under my fingers where's the line.

Over here, they usually do have body and paintshops at dealers, and there's not many dealers to choose from.
I only have 2 Cupra dealers available, and I'm not sure the other one has a paintshop.

Basically I'm trying to get answers on a few questions:

• Whether 8hrs of work is justified for less that a quarter panel + a rear bumper, or if they tried to scam money off of insurance for a half-way finished job.
• Is there a chance that the paint mismatch is due to the ceramic coating I have over the car? It makes no sense to me, but wanted to check.
• Does Cupra allow this kind of repairs, officially? Because that's what made me feel confident in the first place for them to do the work, promising they'd do the entire panel "up to Audi/Porsche/Cupra standards".
• And the most important, what are the odds this kind of paintwork would fail? E.g. start peeling off at the edges or something similar, because I have just a 1 year warranty to whatever this is.

Thanks for the interest

 

[Chris Bartram]

Basically they painted halfway, they didn't paint the entire panel, that's the whole issue. The line is visible on the inside of the door as well.
They covered about 2-4mm behind the doors on the side, masked the rest off. I can easily feel under my fingers where's the line.

Over here, they usually do have body and paintshops at dealers, and there's not many dealers to choose from.
I only have 2 Cupra dealers available, and I'm not sure the other one has a paintshop.

Basically I'm trying to get answers on a few questions:

• Whether 8hrs of work is justified for less that a quarter panel + a rear bumper, or if they tried to scam money off of insurance for a half-way finished job.
• Is there a chance that the paint mismatch is due to the ceramic coating I have over the car? It makes no sense to me, but wanted to check.
• Does Cupra allow this kind of repairs, officially? Because that's what made me feel confident in the first place for them to do the work, promising they'd do the entire panel "up to Audi/Porsche/Cupra standards".
• And the most important, what are the odds this kind of paintwork would fail? E.g. start peeling off at the edges or something similar, because I have just a 1 year warranty to whatever this is.

Thanks for the interest

I'd have said at least 8 hrs to do it properly, but they haven't.

As for your paint protection, well, I had a driver's side door dent fixed on my Leon which has paint protection and they asked before starting, so they could re-instate it, and the repair is now invisible.

I can't say what Cupra's official stance would be but I consider that a shoddy repair, any bodyshop I've used paints the entire panel and blends into the adjacent ones.

I'd say that has a high chance of failing, plus, it looks lousy. I'd reject it. For the repair I had done I rejected it for a minor ripple you had to look along the car, knelt on the ground, and the bodyshop supervisor agreed and apologised.

 

[Tell]

Well they are suppose to go off to authorised paint shops. The old vandals had a go at mine when it was new so I had an authorised repair. The complete paint job on the panel. Then the lovely North London and Essex vandals spent another year at it but given I knew I was moving away decided I'd bank them get them all sorted once I'd moved away from the dysfunctional area.

New dealer enquired which type of repair do you want, authorised or un authorised body shop - that question hadnt been put to me before. The latter half price without the two hour return journey. Authorised paint shops aren't many in rural areas. The non authorised was very good, locally well known by the good folk (hedgerow prangs, posts, ditches and building scrapes their normal repair ). No warranty with the non authorised body shop but showing no signs after six years. I fear one of those nice new Cupras wouldn't fair too well where I use to live. Feral society. Pride and joy would have to be kept under lock and key.

Probably authorised paint shops vary in quality but you get the tick on paint warranty.

 

[SRGTD]

Well they are suppose to go off to authorised paint shops. The old vandals had a go at mine when it was new so I had an authorised repair. The complete paint job on the panel. Then the lovely North London and Essex vandals spent another year at it but given I knew I was moving away decided I'd bank them get them all sorted once I'd moved away from the dysfunctional area.

New dealer enquired which type of repair do you want, authorised or un authorised body shop - that question hadnt been put to me before. The latter half price without the two hour return journey. Authorised paint shops aren't many in rural areas. The non authorised was very good, locally well known by the good folk (hedgerow prangs, posts, ditches and building scrapes their normal repair ). No warranty with the non authorised body shop but showing no signs after six years. I fear one of those nice new Cupras wouldn't fair too well where I use to live. Feral society. Pride and joy would have to be kept under lock and key.

Probably authorised paint shops vary in quality but you get the tick on paint warranty.

IMHO most car manufacturers paintwork warranties aren’t worth very much, if anything at all; paintwork issues are usually the result of an ‘external influence’ which isn’t covered under the warranty. With this in mind, there’s probably limited benefit to be gained from using an authorised bodyshop to keep the paintwork warranty in force and as you’ve said, the authorised repair will very likely cost more than a high quality (superior?) non-authorised repair.

I‘ve seen some pretty shocking pictures of poor paintwork repairs by authorised bodyshops on various VAG forums over the years. I would always rate a bodyshop’s quality of work and reputation over an authorised bodyshop where the quality of work it produces might be an unknown quantity.