EKtheory

hey i have a very faded carbon fiber hood and i was wondering if there were any shops in socal that specializes or is at least experienced in this with the refinishing of carbon fiber hoods?

EKtheory

no one knows any shops in socal for this? :O

gorillafart

iTrader: (1)

look for Devari Carbon. they're who i go thru... via Facebook

WigginsSiR

how bad is it? are there gouges/ deep scratches in it? do you have a pic?

you might be able to wet sand and buff it to get it shining again.

SiZ

This has been covered 1000 times.

EKtheory

it may have been covered 1000 i've used the search engine and haven't found anything that would help ME out. theres a reason why i have under 100 posts. i don't post unless i absolutely need to. i probably surf these forums more than most people to find answers to questions and they're mainly broad questions about the engine which is easier to search up since millions of people have the same car as me and will have problems with it etc etc. but this is mainly IN SOCAL so it's harder to find topics. im not asking for a DIY im asking for a shop. so if you have nothing better to say stfu.

EKtheory

theres no gouges just a couple little cracks at the bottom of the hood which you can't see unless you're bending over in front of it. overall the hood is quite clean but its oxidizing real bad. carbon fiber is supposed to be dark my hood looks like what your car windows would look like in the morning after a freezing cold night

turbo82

Any body shop should be able to fix that. Seems like it would be a simple sand and re clear.

EKtheory

guess i should have put reputable lol since body shops might be able to do it but they're not experienced with carbon fiber i know maaco isn't i already talked to them they said they couldn't do it and they suggested i just paint it the same color as my car lol

DC2.2_GSR

SiZ is right, it has been covered at least 1000 times and all of it applies to you. Your hood is faded... that's it. You don't need a shop that specializes in anything other than spraying clear coat - i.e. a body shop. If there's no damage to the carbon weave underneath then you're just dealing with topcoats. Carbon Fiber hoods are coated with a gel coat that breaks down over time and fades out. Ever notice how it darkens and glosses up when you get the hood wet? That's what clear coat does, only better.

The only fix for your hood is to DA sand it with 800 grit paper and re-clear it, which is the same process as a blend panel when painting a car. No shop will have to have experience with carbon fiber in order to fix your hood, they just have to be a standard body shop with a decent reputation. Maaco can definitely do it. If one won't, go find another one.

You should pay no more than $100 for that work to be done, no matter what shop you go to. I'd probably charge less at my shop. The prep would take about 15 minutes, spraying it would take about 30, and it would only be about 20 oz. of clear on the materials bill.

swappedcx

If you charge less than $100, you are not making any money.

DC2.2_GSR

How do you figure? You're a body guy so I know you know the flow of a shop. Here's how I look at it.

The standard paint labor rate is $46/hr. here in Southeastern PA (way too low, but that's not the point). Say it takes an even hour, no one in the shop makes the full $46/hr., so there's a chunk that goes toward firing up the booth and paying electric and propane for heat. My cost on the clear is about $1.25/oz., so call it $25 in materials and $50 in labor. I'm making $25+ profit when charging $100. When you consider the fact that there's no way in hell I'm firing up the booth for a single part and that it will be thrown in with other jobs, the profit goes up. Not only will I save on booth cost, but also on materials because a large batch of clear will be mixed at once instead of small batches separately. It's easier to gauge how much you need when looking at a large project. Less waste = more profit. Multi-tasking employees make it go up even more. Even little things like blowing off and wiping down a part with others at the same time saves a little time and effort for my prepper. More profit. Something to think about is that you won't always see cash-in-hand profit. A lot of it won't even get noticed except when you go over the month's bills.

Making $25-$40 is more than enough on a simple re-clear of a carbon hood. Most importantly, it will be one more person out the door who is satisfied with their product and experience so I have free advertising and a possibility for more work. Jacking the price up does nothing except decrease the number of possible customers. When doing simple, small jobs I'd rather have 10 happy customers out the door who each paid $100 than four who paid $250 each. I'll never sacrifice quality for quantity, but sometimes making only a little immediate financial gain is necessary in order to get more business later.

For these reasons, I say the OP should pay no more than $100 for the re-clear job. A shop charging even $150-200 is just raking you over the coals. I'd never charge that much because I have respect for my customers.

EKtheory

i wish i lived near philly

oxy3933

damn the labor rate here per hour is $60+

DC2.2_GSR

Yeah it's absurdly low here. We can't get more no matter how much we bitch about it, insurance companies just won't pay it. We're also a direct repair shop for a few major companies and the labor rates are set into the contracts. The only way for the rates to go up is for them to decide to raise it. We're seeing a very slight movement towards a higher rate with the new waterborne paint becoming a requirement, but it's taking a lot of bitching about that one. The waterborne colorants are much more expensive, not to mention the huge cost to retrofit the booth. As it is we're just barely breaking even on basecoat materials costs. With some colors we're losing money fast. On insurance jobs we're having to write supplements for materials costs for certain tri-coat pearls and even some heavy pearl reds. Most of the time they get denied. The cost is killing us and they won't do a damn thing about it. Insurance is legal crime.