405

Looking at a 997 GT3 in Carrara White. We had some paint readings done on the car and need some help translating. The hood, front fenders, front bumper, and side rockers all have Suntek PPF installed, and from what I've been told this makes the meter read higher due to extra thickness. All readings are in mils...

Hood: 11.0, 11.5, 11.0, 11.5, 12.5
Front DS fender: 12.0, 12.0, 13.0, 12.5, 12.0
Front PS fender: 12.5,12.0,12.0,12.0,11.5
Driver door: 6.0, 7.0, 6.0, 6.0, 8.0, 7.0, 6.0, 8.5
Passenger door: 4.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.0
Rear Driver quarter: 5.0 ,5.0 ,5.0 ,5.5 ,5.0
Rear Pass quarter: 5.0, 5.0, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5
Roof: 4.5, 4.5, 5.0, 5.0, 4.0
A pillar: 5.5 , 5.0
C pillar: 5.0, 5.5, 5.0, 5.0
Driver Rocker: 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5
Pass Rocker: 12.0, 12.5, 12.5, 12.5

From what I've researched, most modern Porsches wearing factory paint read in the 4 mil -7 mil thickness range. The driver door on this car is a couple mils higher than the rest of the car. Does anyone familiar with paint readings and metering these cars see any issue here? The majority of the readings on this panel are "in spec", but higher than the other panels. We also pulled an 8.5 reading off of this door, but when we tried to find it again we couldn't in the same spot...maybe a bad reading? We did 20-30 readings on the door and it metered a consistent 6.0-7.0 mils, with (1) 8.0 mil and (1) 8.5 mil reading.

I have done some research online and found the previous owner (not the seller) of the car that owned it from 2009 - early 2018. I reached out to him and he has given us a lot of history on the car, but also stated he had no paintwork done during his ownership. The door hinges don't look like they have been tampered with as all the paint is still on the bolts in that area, the VIN tag is still on the inner door where it meets the jam, and there doesn't seem to be any signs of over spray under the weather stripping. I am helping look for a car with original paint, and this car checks out perfectly in every other way with these readings being the only question mark as we are not familiar. Would you expect readings like that to be original on a 997 generation car?

jcdeng

Door might have been resprayed to fix a scratch or big door ding that damaged the paint?

neurotic

this might be helpful

tone96

5-6 is usually the range for original paint any thing above that its been respired judging from the parts that have been repaint might of been due to rock chips or an off road experience

andrewgt3

good video.

SamB

405

Thanks for for the replies. The video was also helpful. I have decided to pass on this car.

edit: I had metered another car , a 997.2 at a local dealer that was repainted. The repainted areas were also coming up 12-13+. These were very obvious indications of a refinish.