rg588911

Has anyone had a meter on their car? I purchased a 99 cab in basalt black and I am reading 9 mils but I am convinced the car has original paint. It has a clean carfax and it reads 9 almost everywhere. If it were resprayed it would have had to have been a full repaint to achieve that consistancy, and with a clean carfax that sounds weird. Especially on a cab which probably would not have seen a track accident that wouldnt have shown on carfax.
Any thoughts?
Ryan

dresler

Yeah, that's really thick!

rmillnj

I bought my 1974 911 brand new. Was actually at the dealer when it arrived. After 4 years the clear coat on the paint cracked so I had it redone. When they stripped it down they found out that the door had been repaired and repainted. It probably happened while intransit and was repaired before it was delivered to the dealer. I found out that back then they actually had a body shop at the docks because so many cars came through damaged.

I wonder if things like that still happen today.

Wellardmac

Yup, I was reading about a batch of 370 BMWs that were damaged in transit -they will be refinished and sold. I'd be pissed off if one of them was mine. These things had severely damaged body panels.

http://www.autounleashed.com/370-bmw...ship-incident/

salayc

What's your paint code? Is it water based? In my experience water based paints are usually much thicker when applied.

skiracer

I read somewhere that P-cars have 26 coats of paint at the factory. True?

Eric - Plug Guy

I believe standard is 4.5. 9 would be huge, but there are plenty of variances straight out of the factory.

AudiOn19s

As a Detailer, who happens to own a 996, I can tell you with relative certanty that there's no way the Porsche factory paint is 9mils thick.

An entire repaint doesn't necessarily mean it's been crashed...could very well have been key'd badly enough to warrant a complete repaint.

As stated above 4.5ish is about right for factory paint thickness.

Andy

salayc

Can't imagine it's true, too much paint can crack under stress.

demosan

+2 ( eric and this note).

When I bought my car in the PPI I had the paint thickness checked and the spec was 4.4-4.6 m thick per the Porsche Tech. Anything close to 9m would suggest a repaint of the car IMHO.

demosan

ppashley

1. carfax isn't 100% reliable. Sometimes far from.

2. Suggest you try your paint tester on another p-car to validate if it reads 4-5 as people are suggesting. (to act as a control - then you know your gauge isn't faulty).

Good luck

Tippy

My Father who restores cars said they did this many, many years ago when body filler was not available to fill small dents and imperfections. It gave you a lot of material to wet sand down and take out the wiggles. I do remember a 63-67 Corvette that had 27 coats of Tuxedo Black in Corvette Fever magazine when I was younger.

dresler

Tippy, that avatar makes me think you are Ben half the time...

RayGT3

Had checked my paint at a consistant 6 mil which seams more reasonable than a number of 9, too high imho. Don't know how well the calibration was, not my gauge, but the other cars checked seemed to fall into this catagory as well, so I think this is a relativly reliable number. All the other cars we looked at with high numbers were known repaints.

Fat Sled

I had mine checked and it was between 4.5-5.5 all over the car.