potent951turbo

Okay here is the quick story. I bought my current 951 a little over a year ago. I had been wanting to buy it from the previous owner for about 3-4 years and finally got it. It was a color I really loved(Alpine White) and had sunroof delete. Before I bought the car however someone bumped the driver's side fender and caused a pretty nice crease behind the front wheel, and I figured since it was a easily replaceable body part it didn't bother me much when I bought it. No paint was broken and I had a paintless dent guy work on it and he got it really pretty straight but not perfect. One area he messed up on though was when he was applying the hot glue for one of his pullers it melted through some of the paint down to the factory primer.

Here is where the opinions are needed:

The paint on the car is the original alpine white paint and is in overall excellent condition for its age. I have been dreading the thought of having to have anything painted(the damaged zone) for this very reason. The paint on the damaged fender is great minus the thin area where the damage was. I have told all the body shops I have talked to that I don't want anything painted besides the fender since its the original paint and I don't want a bunch of blending done to other surfaces. I also said that I wanted single stage paint like the original paint because I don't want a super shiny fender with clear coat when the rest of the car isn't that way. The local Porsche dealer here said they don't paint using single stage anymore so they couldn't do it how I wanted. Other shops said they only wanted to do it if they could paint the door etc. which I don't want. I understand that they want it to blend etc. but I would rather have a slightly off fender then a shiny fender + door that doesn't match the rest. The place I am considering having the work done at said they can do single stage, and that they use all Dupont products. I told them it might be hard to match since its not a super bright white like most cars, and they said no problem and used a paint camera on part of the car to take pictures of the paint. The estimated the work to cost $427 to do some metal work to straighten things out the rest of the way, and to repaint the entire fender. They didn't recommend just spraying the bad spot of the fender because you would see a line in a few years.

So am I being too paranoid about this repair? Are Dupont products highly regarded in your opinions? Is painting the entire fender the right choice, or should I find someone who can just do the bad area and work it into the rest of the fender?

Please post your thoughts and comments. Sorry about things being so long, I just wanted to cover all areas.

JonT

Not sure how large of an area you need done but I would search for an airbrush touchup place and have just the spot redone. Some out there are (no affiliation, never used, etc) aerocolors.com and paintmedic.com. Those will at least give you an idea.
I would ask your closest Ferrari/Bentley/RR/AstonMartin/whatever you have dealer who they use for touch ups.
jon, another save-original-paint-at-all-costs fanatic

Mike C.

There are single stage epoxies out there. I bought my Alpine White from NAPA. They'll mix it to the paint code and a good body shop should be able to adjust that to match fade.

xsboost90

you can use a singe stage eurethane- but really- if its shiney- the clearcoated paint will not look any different.

MAD MAC

potent951turbo86

I recently shot a door on an 86 911 targa with Dupont Premier single stage and it looked really great. There is two common Dupont paints for 1 stage. Premier and Centari. The Premier is for OEM type finishes and works great. You may want to have the rest of the car clay bar and polished after. This will help the paint match. You just need to make the rest of the car shine a little more after it is painted. The Premier has a slow cure time and can't be waxed for a month or longer.

xsboost90

oohh dont go centari- that is not eurethane, just acrylic enamel. No UV protection there.

MAD MAC

It really is crap.

Burma Shave

Epoxies are not for exterior use as they have no uv resistance and will chalk very quickly. If you were my customer I would panel paint it for you but there would be no gaurantee on color match. In my area the touchup guys do a fair job but not to my standard. Btw, melting in single stage for a spot repair is possible but a bit more difficult than clearcoat. A singlestage spot repair also shouldn't be buffed because the edges will show. Any clear or single stage blend will fail before the rest of the paint job because the edge thickness is reduced due to blending. A minimum for durability is around 2 mils. Any way you go will be a compromise. If the shop is gauranteeing colormatch on a panel paint job I would go for it. Just remember it pobably won't be 100%. The camera is great but will not select some single stage formulas. I would be more inclined to use the factory code and tint it if necessary. A lot of times when matching older white single stage I add a little yellow oxide tint to "age" the new paint.

pjburges

I agree with Burma - If you paint one spot it will be very difficult to hide that, everything is a trade-off. You could remove the fender and take it to a shop - that might be the best thing rather than painting other panels to blend or patching just that spot.

potent951turbo

Burma- I didn't know you had your own shop, I come to Alabama on a regular bases.

Thanks for the opinions guys, keep them coming! I am very willing to travel with the car to get it done right. These guys do good work but I would rather work with someone who understands my situation and my thoughts on the car. Everyone I have talked to so far just sees it as another repair job, not a case of someone wanting to make the best choice possible.

Burma Shave

I'd be happy to repair your car, long trip though. As far as removing the fender to refinish it, I wouldn't do that either. If you remove the splash shield and look at the bottom of the fender there is quite a lot of seam sealer/glue holding the fender on(pita). What I'm saying about a spot repair is that it will show around the edges eventually. I can make it almost invisible for several years no problem though, especially if its garaged. I could also achieve an acceptable match that 95% of people wouldn't see. I would lean towards refinishing the entire panel. A car of this age is expected to have a repair or two. Just photograph the damage for future buyers. Btw, DuPont is an outstanding product line. Matter of fact I sold it for 8 years and use it in my shop. There are plenty of good products out there but few as productive and easy to use with the same quality. Let me know if you need any help.

Burma Shave

In addition, you have to consider the condition of the existing finish, etc. With enthusasts / pcar owners I always try to set reasonable expectations and then exceed them. This makes everbody happy including me.

harrisonrick

Best to take it to Burma or someone who CARES about what he is doing. White is a VERY hard colour to match when doing only 1 panel, especially on 20 year old well cured paint . I'd be inclined to live with it if its not a total eyesore and wait until I could paint the whole car.

Just my opinion.

MAD MAC

BTW ask to see some pics of other cars the shop has done to get an idea of their work. Some places will just tape and shoot to get it out the door. Someone good will happily show off what they can do.

Mike C.

Yea epoxy wasn't the correct name - it was a urethane enamel one coat system. But you mix in a hardener, thus the epoxy connotation....