Had a 2 inch paint chip turn into a full quarter panel respray on a '17 Civic Tuesday

Customer brought their car in for what looked like a simple rock chip near the rear wheel. I started sanding and found bondo from a previous shoddy repair that was bubbling underneath. Ended up stripping the whole panel, fixing the old dent, and shooting it again. Took me 3 extra hours but the customer was happy. Ever run into hidden damage that blew up a quick job?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas49823h ago

Hang on, bondo from a PREVIOUS repair? That's insane. So someone already messed with that quarter panel before and just hid it under a layer of filler? I can't believe you had to be the one to discover that mess years later, that's the kind of thing that makes you want to just walk away from the car. Must have felt like you were digging up a time capsule of bad decisions. Three extra hours is rough but at least you caught it before the whole thing fell apart again.

claire_fisher4111h ago

Oh man, you hit the nail on the head. I've been there before, and it's always a gut punch when you find someone else's hack job buried under paint. My advice is to always poke around with a magnet or a paint thickness gauge before you start any bodywork, especially on older cars. It saves you from that nasty surprise and the extra three hours of grinding. Plus, it's way better to find that mess yourself than to have it bubble up six months later after you've painted it.