Excessive front bumper chipping...

Ess_Three · Feb 28, 2005

I'm suffering from excessive chipping of the paint of the front bumper skin...it's awful!
I've only had my car for two months, and the paint is chipping off the front bumper at an alarming rate.

It's easy to say it's donw to me driving too close behind other cars - but it's not!
The lower lip of the Aerokit is perfect, the bonnet perfect, the wings perfect, the lights perfect...just the bumper skin.

At 600 miles it needed re-painting to keep me happy...now at 1500 it looks awful - a complete embarassmemt.
My previous car (an Audi) never had a single stone chip of this size, at nearly 4 years old.

Needless to say...I'm less than impressed.

The issue is currently in the hands of my local OPC (Aberdeen), Porsche approved body centre, and PCGB...but still no resolution, despite one of the sales staff commenting that it's not the first C4S to do this..

Anyone else got the same problem?

Guest · Feb 28, 2005

what's the colour. I understand that some colours are prone to this mostly the dark blue. I was told by my OPC it was due to being a water based paint??

Ess_Three · Feb 28, 2005

It's Speed Yellow...

The bodyshop agree that water based paints are less hard wearing...but thay also agree that paint shouldn't chip off quite so easily!

What makes it worse, is the fact that the bumper skin is moulded in black...so each and every chip is VERY obvious....as it's right through to the plastic.

glenn mcmenamin · Feb 28, 2005

Hmmm,

was this a used car ???

I had one off these stone chip companies do some work on the front
bumper of my C4S when i had it, looked OK for a week, then after a couple of weeks, the front
looked like it had be shot at with a 12 bore.
They only did one side of the bumper, and it was this side that went bad, the other side with the
original paint, did not change at all.

If your car was 2nd user, then i would say that they had the bumper resprayed by a paint shop, and
they haven't done a very good job.

G.

Ess_Three · Feb 28, 2005

The car was delivered in December...new, from Aberdeen OPC.
I personally watched it come off the transporter, and collected it the next day...so no paintwork has been done - other than the factory paint finish.

Needless to say, with 600 miles on the clock, I had the 12 bore look to the bumper skin, all around the intake / grille holes...

Now at 1500+ miles, I have the full bumper skin coming out in sympathy...

Yet, the lower lip remains perfect...not a single stone chip...

Sad thing is, after giving the car a good clean today...the rear bumper shows signs of heading the same way...there is more paint missing on the leading edge of the rear bumper, than is still attached.

So, unless PCGB and my OPC come through with a satisfactory warranty claim, I'm looking at re-painting the front bumper, and re-touching the rear bumper, at 1500 miles and just over 2 months old....the rest of the car is absolutely immaculate (as you'd expect)
Not the situation I expected to find myself in, at all.

blueSL · Mar 2, 2005

One issue with painting plastic body parts is that if the mould release agent is not properly cleaned off, it acts as a very effective paint release agent. Sounds like the person who did your bumpers (painted with the car) had a bad day. Definite warrantly claim and I would say don't just over spray it because the paint underneath is what is letting go. You need new bumpers, properly painted.

Really surprised at how susceptible my silver C4S is to paint damage. I never had a problem with a Guards Red 964 C4 in the early 90s (my previous Porsche). Sad to say, coming back to Porsche after a gap of 9 years has been a bit of a let down. Roll on my AM V8 Vantage!

Mark_Bennett · Mar 2, 2005

Actually, the bumpers come in to the factory pre-painted from the supplier. They are not painted with the car.
This explains some of the ridiculous cost of "special" colour options.

Nugget of info picked up on a factory tour (when we saw racks of bumpers all pre-painted, and I then asked the question...)

blueSL · Mar 2, 2005

I stand corrected! The supplier must have been having a bad day, doesn't say much for Porsche QC which I assume is done in house, or do they subcon that out as well?

Mark_Bennett · Mar 2, 2005

The components have a tolerance of colour shade that is allowed.
I suspect sample QC checks are done on each batch at the Factory (each batch probably a day or so's production - but here I am theorising with a background as an engineer!).
Main QC would be done beforehand at the supplier.

Porsche operate a "just in time" system, so the supplier HAS to get it right and have stringent QC in place (or they pay for holding the line up!). Small amounts of error will always be allowed. However without "destructive testing" of each part I don't see how this particular paint problem would have been detected. (And you can't destructive test each part[

])