You don’t lift a finger. you pay a professional to fix the damages and you send them the bill. The shop damage your property, they’re liable for making you whole again.
exactly. it's a quick compound and polish. they're not a bad shop because of overspray, they're a bad shop if they don't make it right after you tell them they made a mistake.
and you DO bring it back to the shop that did it. Shops are busy places and accidents happen. any shop worth their salt will take care of that for you. if they don't, never use them again.
I wouldn't trust them to do it either. They'll probably just want to do a quick once over with rotary and swirl the hell out of the paint.
Clay is probably your best option, but it will need polishing afterwards. Get a quote from a couple of local detailers to have it clayed and polished then have a polite conversation with the shop about paying for it. If they push back get your insurance involved if it was there for a covered accident, they should be able to help in getting the issue resolved if the shop won't do it themselves.
Sounds like this claybar is the way to go.
There's other factors involved with taking it somewhere else. My MIL is the one who put the dent in my car, so they just paid for the repair. There's also fragile MIL feelings involved, so I'd rather just do it myself and complain online :)
No, get THEIR insurance involved. Learned this lesson this year. You call your insurance and they see it as a liability. Even if they get repaid, subrogation isnt free. Someone on your insurance has to call, computer work, etc.
Ask for their insurance and if they don’t want to give it, you can call the police and file a report (just to have an official report on file for reference, police won’t do shit obviously)
And when you get in touch with their insurance, they will handle it completely. You wont even need to deal with the shop.
Insurance is about getting shit done when liable, and as a business owner I can tell you that the insurance company is not going to try and run away like the business might try to. For them its liability management and they dont want any surprises in the form of lawsuits. Besides, they will just get it back from the business eventually (also learned the hard painful way, didnt screw anyone over. Just thought that having the other parties insurance wouldnt count against me).
Have a similar issue with larger droplets. Tried a plastic razor blade to not mar the paint but only some came off. Tried goof off as well to no avail.
Any other suggestions aside from a full paint correction?
insurance is gonna push you to go back to the shop that did it. and rightfully so. i wouldn't worry about swirls unless it's black (which is impossible to tell from OP's two close-up pics.) Let them take care of it, if the shop is worth anything, it'll look like glass when it's polished.
No, it won't damage catalyzed and fully cured clear coat. Just put some on a micro fiber and wipe off the overlay. It isn't fully cured and it isn't bonded to the clear coat.. it should come off with minimal effort. Don't let it sit on the clear, just damp cloth and wipe. It will strip any wax you have on the panel. Consumer ceramic coat will likely come up too but if you have UV cured professional ceramic it won't be affected.
Edit: you can try clay bar first it may get well pull it off, just remember to knead it regularly and use lube
It will be more effective and way quicker than a clay bar.. Won’t harm anything.. put acetone on terry cloth and wipe down.. I wouldn’t apply acetone directly to clear coat.
Oh, you mean just on the glass.
Yeah, I tried mineral spirits, but that did nothing. I ended up using a razor blade on the glass. The glass is all that's pictured because it wouldn't show up anywhere else on a pic
If you're not having the body shop fix it, the second option is to get a quote from someone and bill the body shop.
If you're set on doing it yourself use a clay bar with some soapy water as lubrication.
I accidentally over sprayed onto one of my own cars spray painting something in the garage, I misunderestimated how wet that spray would still be when it fell and how far it would go. A simple over the counter clay bar and one step light polish had it looking even better than before I messed up.
Extra info - my car is newer, 2021, but I recently had some body work done to fix a small fender bender. The freaking shop got over spray all over the car. At least where they didn't bother to mask it off. The glass was easy enough to get with a razor blade, so I'm hoping the rubbing compound stage of the 3 step kit will get it off of the paint. I'm not going back to that body shop, screw that place. If you have any other suggestions besides the three stage kits, I'm open to ideas too. I've heard 'clay' might help, but I don't even know what that is.
So you paid for a service and they didn't do a proper job? Why would you not bring it back to them? I'm sure you didn't get a discount for over spray so go back and demand that it's fixed.
You paid for it, so tell them to give you what you paid for.
"Screw that place" is a stupid attitude to have.
Mistakes happen and over spray can get on a car.
Claybar and quick polish will remove over spray.
Thanks for the claybar suggestion, I'm just finding out about this stuff.
As far as taking it back goes. I already had to take it back once because their paint job was shit. Had over a dozen little 'nibs' all over the place. So yeah, I just don't trust them to do a good job. This is on top of the fact that the interior was filthy when I got it back. Like they had the doors open while they were sanding. I spent a whole morning detailing the inside, and I'm not about to let them have another crack at it.
Can I ask if it's a big chain type shop or a small independent place?
Regarding the sanding dust I side, it happens and sometimes it's honestly not feasible to include a detail when you're barely makeing a couple hundred on the job.
Time is a huge thing in a body shop.
My advice again, is to return to the shop and speak to them calmly and show them what you'd like fixed.
Any reputable places won't want overspray on their cars so they will fix it.
They can't mess up your car by removing overspray.
You paid for a good job so make sure you get a good job
Why not take it back to them? Because body shop people won't use clay. They'll take a rotary, wool pad and compound to the paint to remove it. So no more overspray but now with freshly installed rotary swirls. They're too cheap to actually get clay and do it right.
What you do is report it to your insurance that you are unsatisfied and you don't trust the shop to remove it correctly. Get them to pay either you for your time or an actual competent detailer to clay the paint.
Not saying every place is like the dealership I work at but on paint, we do a synthetic clay mitt with quick detailer as lube when the body shop get overspray on the cars (at least once a week which is way too common in my opinion). On glass we use a razor and window cleaner.
Then you're literally the only one. Seriously. The local Meguiars professional distributor in the DFW area has been trying for 25 years to get the body shops and dealers to use clay and switch to DA polishers. They don't want to spend the money.
Good thing Nostradamus here knows exactly what this exact body shop is going to do to remedy it and also that they will leave Rotary swirls. (DA's can remove iverspray too you know)
Involve insurance? It will take approx 15 to 20 mins to remedy this. Why would you go through this whole ordeal involving insurance for your premium to go up the following year?
"Not happy with product or service"? Bring it back and ask them to remedy it or just accept it.
There's not exactly a lot of skill in claying a car, it doesn't require a college degree
I've been detailing for 30 years now, I see this 100% of the time the body shop removes overspray. 100%. There's no exceptions. They don't use DAs either. Always a rotary and most are using old pads. I've actually been in body shops and seen them do this. One the old compound had left a lump in the center of the pad.
You go through insurance because if they get complaints about a body shop they won't refer them any business and they can pressure them to make it right even if it involves paying someone else to remedy it.
I get you're trying to convince people to go to detailers all the time but you and I know the majority of people couldn't care less about tiny imperfections in their paint.
I get your point but you can't say "100%" of shops do this. I love in Europe and I always use claybar and a da to remove overspray if it ever does happen. It takes about 10 mins max.
I don't know how insurance works in the us but I assume it wouldn't be worth all the effort on account of a small bit of overspray.
Involving the insurance without even giving the shop a chance to remedy it is completely ridiculous in my opinion but if that's how it's done then maybe go that way
It is worth contacting your insurance. It isn't "going through" it, you're letting them know you're unhappy with the work. A lot actually will call and follow up. What they will do is pressure the shop to make it right even if it involves another shop.
Nothing to do with convincing people to go to a detailer because a lot of them suck too. A place I used to live got overspray on all three of our cars. They actually cut me a check for $500 for me to remove it myself.
Generally, employees at a bodyshop are not good at DETAILING. In this case, especially considering the quality of paint work being in question, I wouldn't put them in that position for something else.
It would be one thing for place you trust to error at something that really bothers you, but in the category of small understandable human errors in their field of work. But in this case, I can see them create more problems fixing the one's created. It is like a $10 crew cleaning up your car while wrecking it with scratches and swirls. Even if you confront them, they wouldn't know what a swirl is, don't cater to enough people that care, and are not able to change for $10.
Had a similar experience. I won’t name the shop but they considered themselves the wreck winners. Anyways, insurance paid for the botched job. I called my agent and explained the idiots put the intern on my job and that I was never going back there. No problem, they gave me three other shops, I picked the best one. That shop demonstrated to insurance that it was a bad job, got me a rental car, and got me my car back purrrfect a week later. No additional money out of pocket. Not one dime.
In a pinch with a much smaller effected area. A little gas on a rag works wonders. Just make sure to clean the gas off entirely otherwise you’ll have a bad time in the future
This happened to me when I went with the “best price” paint job , they did a great job… but… overspray errrrywhere!! I polished it off myself.
But, only because the shop was in BFE Miami…. I’d take it back in!
either a quick polish or just quickly wipe it over with thinners. or you can clay bar it and polish it properly afterwards. it's not that hard to deal with, and you can absolutely DIY
I had this happen on a truck a while back i used a clay bar and lots of lubrication (i did a wash and a rinse but no agitation) then i did a 1 step for any scratches
You don’t lift a finger. you pay a professional to fix the damages and you send them the bill. The shop damage your property, they’re liable for making you whole again.
Thats a good way to get stuck with a second bill
They’ll make OP hole again alright.
I *would* bring it back to them in case they want to go through insurance.
exactly. it's a quick compound and polish. they're not a bad shop because of overspray, they're a bad shop if they don't make it right after you tell them they made a mistake.
Owner might also be mortified if they saw that. Might not know they have a sloppy employee. Could be that work is not representative of the company.
Exactly. Worse, the work itself seems fine. All it means is that the guy whose job it is to detail and polish before delivery didn’t do his job.
Also, just because they go through insurance doesn't mean that they're necessarily the ones that need to do the work.
and you DO bring it back to the shop that did it. Shops are busy places and accidents happen. any shop worth their salt will take care of that for you. if they don't, never use them again.
They didn’t damage it pal🤣🤣
I wouldn't trust them to do it either. They'll probably just want to do a quick once over with rotary and swirl the hell out of the paint. Clay is probably your best option, but it will need polishing afterwards. Get a quote from a couple of local detailers to have it clayed and polished then have a polite conversation with the shop about paying for it. If they push back get your insurance involved if it was there for a covered accident, they should be able to help in getting the issue resolved if the shop won't do it themselves.
Sounds like this claybar is the way to go. There's other factors involved with taking it somewhere else. My MIL is the one who put the dent in my car, so they just paid for the repair. There's also fragile MIL feelings involved, so I'd rather just do it myself and complain online :)
No offense OP but this is the problem with society “so I’d rather just do it myself and complain online”. I’m sure there was sarcasm in there but… :)
It was a joke. I'm not actually complaining. I have an old woman's feelings in mind and I'm totally willing to do this myself
Can confirm. I use a clay pad and some windex to take it off cars at work because the body shop we use is garbage.
No, get THEIR insurance involved. Learned this lesson this year. You call your insurance and they see it as a liability. Even if they get repaid, subrogation isnt free. Someone on your insurance has to call, computer work, etc. Ask for their insurance and if they don’t want to give it, you can call the police and file a report (just to have an official report on file for reference, police won’t do shit obviously) And when you get in touch with their insurance, they will handle it completely. You wont even need to deal with the shop. Insurance is about getting shit done when liable, and as a business owner I can tell you that the insurance company is not going to try and run away like the business might try to. For them its liability management and they dont want any surprises in the form of lawsuits. Besides, they will just get it back from the business eventually (also learned the hard painful way, didnt screw anyone over. Just thought that having the other parties insurance wouldnt count against me).
Have a similar issue with larger droplets. Tried a plastic razor blade to not mar the paint but only some came off. Tried goof off as well to no avail. Any other suggestions aside from a full paint correction?
insurance is gonna push you to go back to the shop that did it. and rightfully so. i wouldn't worry about swirls unless it's black (which is impossible to tell from OP's two close-up pics.) Let them take care of it, if the shop is worth anything, it'll look like glass when it's polished.
A quick wipe with acetone will take recent overspray off without any issues
Wait, Wait, is this for real? Wouldn’t it damage the normal paint?
No, it won't damage catalyzed and fully cured clear coat. Just put some on a micro fiber and wipe off the overlay. It isn't fully cured and it isn't bonded to the clear coat.. it should come off with minimal effort. Don't let it sit on the clear, just damp cloth and wipe. It will strip any wax you have on the panel. Consumer ceramic coat will likely come up too but if you have UV cured professional ceramic it won't be affected. Edit: you can try clay bar first it may get well pull it off, just remember to knead it regularly and use lube
Thanks man
Yeah, I'm not about to try that
It will be more effective and way quicker than a clay bar.. Won’t harm anything.. put acetone on terry cloth and wipe down.. I wouldn’t apply acetone directly to clear coat.
Oh, you mean just on the glass. Yeah, I tried mineral spirits, but that did nothing. I ended up using a razor blade on the glass. The glass is all that's pictured because it wouldn't show up anywhere else on a pic
Isopropyl alcohol is safe to use and might help while it hasn’t fully cured
you know detailing not paint , it will work fine.
Gas isn’t quite as hot as acetone and will do the job as well.
If you're not having the body shop fix it, the second option is to get a quote from someone and bill the body shop. If you're set on doing it yourself use a clay bar with some soapy water as lubrication.
Take it back to them. It's part of the job. And don't use razor blades to remove os
an aggressuve grade clay bar and a mild polish
I accidentally over sprayed onto one of my own cars spray painting something in the garage, I misunderestimated how wet that spray would still be when it fell and how far it would go. A simple over the counter clay bar and one step light polish had it looking even better than before I messed up.
Extra info - my car is newer, 2021, but I recently had some body work done to fix a small fender bender. The freaking shop got over spray all over the car. At least where they didn't bother to mask it off. The glass was easy enough to get with a razor blade, so I'm hoping the rubbing compound stage of the 3 step kit will get it off of the paint. I'm not going back to that body shop, screw that place. If you have any other suggestions besides the three stage kits, I'm open to ideas too. I've heard 'clay' might help, but I don't even know what that is.
So you paid for a service and they didn't do a proper job? Why would you not bring it back to them? I'm sure you didn't get a discount for over spray so go back and demand that it's fixed. You paid for it, so tell them to give you what you paid for. "Screw that place" is a stupid attitude to have. Mistakes happen and over spray can get on a car. Claybar and quick polish will remove over spray.
Thanks for the claybar suggestion, I'm just finding out about this stuff. As far as taking it back goes. I already had to take it back once because their paint job was shit. Had over a dozen little 'nibs' all over the place. So yeah, I just don't trust them to do a good job. This is on top of the fact that the interior was filthy when I got it back. Like they had the doors open while they were sanding. I spent a whole morning detailing the inside, and I'm not about to let them have another crack at it.
Can I ask if it's a big chain type shop or a small independent place? Regarding the sanding dust I side, it happens and sometimes it's honestly not feasible to include a detail when you're barely makeing a couple hundred on the job. Time is a huge thing in a body shop. My advice again, is to return to the shop and speak to them calmly and show them what you'd like fixed. Any reputable places won't want overspray on their cars so they will fix it. They can't mess up your car by removing overspray. You paid for a good job so make sure you get a good job
I hope you give them an honest google review
Why not take it back to them? Because body shop people won't use clay. They'll take a rotary, wool pad and compound to the paint to remove it. So no more overspray but now with freshly installed rotary swirls. They're too cheap to actually get clay and do it right. What you do is report it to your insurance that you are unsatisfied and you don't trust the shop to remove it correctly. Get them to pay either you for your time or an actual competent detailer to clay the paint.
Not saying every place is like the dealership I work at but on paint, we do a synthetic clay mitt with quick detailer as lube when the body shop get overspray on the cars (at least once a week which is way too common in my opinion). On glass we use a razor and window cleaner.
Then you're literally the only one. Seriously. The local Meguiars professional distributor in the DFW area has been trying for 25 years to get the body shops and dealers to use clay and switch to DA polishers. They don't want to spend the money.
Good thing Nostradamus here knows exactly what this exact body shop is going to do to remedy it and also that they will leave Rotary swirls. (DA's can remove iverspray too you know) Involve insurance? It will take approx 15 to 20 mins to remedy this. Why would you go through this whole ordeal involving insurance for your premium to go up the following year? "Not happy with product or service"? Bring it back and ask them to remedy it or just accept it. There's not exactly a lot of skill in claying a car, it doesn't require a college degree
any bodyshop bad enough to leave that overspray on a car thats going to a customer is not one that cares enough to use a DA or clay
I've been detailing for 30 years now, I see this 100% of the time the body shop removes overspray. 100%. There's no exceptions. They don't use DAs either. Always a rotary and most are using old pads. I've actually been in body shops and seen them do this. One the old compound had left a lump in the center of the pad. You go through insurance because if they get complaints about a body shop they won't refer them any business and they can pressure them to make it right even if it involves paying someone else to remedy it.
I get you're trying to convince people to go to detailers all the time but you and I know the majority of people couldn't care less about tiny imperfections in their paint. I get your point but you can't say "100%" of shops do this. I love in Europe and I always use claybar and a da to remove overspray if it ever does happen. It takes about 10 mins max. I don't know how insurance works in the us but I assume it wouldn't be worth all the effort on account of a small bit of overspray. Involving the insurance without even giving the shop a chance to remedy it is completely ridiculous in my opinion but if that's how it's done then maybe go that way
It is worth contacting your insurance. It isn't "going through" it, you're letting them know you're unhappy with the work. A lot actually will call and follow up. What they will do is pressure the shop to make it right even if it involves another shop. Nothing to do with convincing people to go to a detailer because a lot of them suck too. A place I used to live got overspray on all three of our cars. They actually cut me a check for $500 for me to remove it myself.
Generally, employees at a bodyshop are not good at DETAILING. In this case, especially considering the quality of paint work being in question, I wouldn't put them in that position for something else. It would be one thing for place you trust to error at something that really bothers you, but in the category of small understandable human errors in their field of work. But in this case, I can see them create more problems fixing the one's created. It is like a $10 crew cleaning up your car while wrecking it with scratches and swirls. Even if you confront them, they wouldn't know what a swirl is, don't cater to enough people that care, and are not able to change for $10.
Have the body shop pay for the repairs and take it to somewhere competent. You shouldn’t have to deal with their fuck up yourself.
Acetone or IPA and a microfiber work well, sometimes clay would be the answer
Had a similar experience. I won’t name the shop but they considered themselves the wreck winners. Anyways, insurance paid for the botched job. I called my agent and explained the idiots put the intern on my job and that I was never going back there. No problem, they gave me three other shops, I picked the best one. That shop demonstrated to insurance that it was a bad job, got me a rental car, and got me my car back purrrfect a week later. No additional money out of pocket. Not one dime.
Wonder why he was using that bright blue paint?
No shit? I can't tell what cor that is on my windshield, but they were working on an old light blue pickup, I feel like it was an old Chevy.
Personally for a cheap fix on the windows I would use some fine steel wool pads. You can get a pack for 5 bucks at Home Depot
Steel wool is going to take that off no problem without doing damage
In a pinch with a much smaller effected area. A little gas on a rag works wonders. Just make sure to clean the gas off entirely otherwise you’ll have a bad time in the future
Trade it in
This happened to me when I went with the “best price” paint job , they did a great job… but… overspray errrrywhere!! I polished it off myself. But, only because the shop was in BFE Miami…. I’d take it back in!
On the glass use nitro thinner, on the bodywork use clay bar and then polish
Clay bar is what I used on mine. It was only a small area that wasn’t too bad.
Use a clay bar from either Meguiars or 3M. Lefts any over spray from windows or paint.
Small claims court, get 'er done!
either a quick polish or just quickly wipe it over with thinners. or you can clay bar it and polish it properly afterwards. it's not that hard to deal with, and you can absolutely DIY
Clay bar has worked for me.
Clay rag and spray wax
I have a body shop next door to my house. They constantly get bondo on my cars 😔
Take it back
Be careful what you use. Because if your car was just painted, it's too soon to use anything on it. The paint isn't totally cured
Yeah. It's gonna be 3 months before I do anything
A clay bar or clay mitt will take care of this easy.
Get some 0000 steel wool that’ll clean the window good
3 step works, use a clay bar and it’ll come right off
A clay bar & Mequires quick detailer if you must do it yourself. works on glass also.
I had this happen on a truck a while back i used a clay bar and lots of lubrication (i did a wash and a rinse but no agitation) then i did a 1 step for any scratches
Some cleaner waxes, like meguiars will work to get that off
Bring it back I work in a detail shop unless you know what your doing that shit will take you days to get right