So when I bought my car it was spray painted white and was pretty bad looking. Overspray on every area you could imagine. I noticed on some areas where it was flaking off it showed a turquoise color and others it was silver. So I think I have black doors, a silver rear bumper, and maybe a silver trunk. I'm not sure I want to take all that paint off and just go with the paradise blue green pearl the body of the car is, but how would I do that? I used a little acetone and lacquer thinner on the door jam to figure out the paint code and that took a lot of work. I'm afraid of messing up the finish beneath the paint if I use too much, and it evaporates quickly, so I'd go through gallons and gallons of the stuff to get every area of the car. Is there a quicker way anyone knew of?

 

There's really no hope of saving the paint underneath. You just need to respray it.
I'd sand the whole car down 220 to the oem layer of paint and prime it. then block it 400 and spray

 

I refuse to believe it!

If I managed to get to the original finish from just elbow grease on that door jam, wouldn't flaking paint be something I could, say, powerwash off? Take a trip over to Home Depot and rent a power washer, then just blast it all away in an afternoon. Is that overkill though? I wouldn't want to waste the money to find out I blasted that finish I want off...

Some good news is that I noticed it may just be my doors that are black and my trunk may be fine. The underside of it is turquoise like the rest of the car.

 

Sanding will be fast, cheaper and easier, not to mention better. You'll end up having to sand anyways when you repaint it.

 

Chances are no one scuffed the door jambs before paint. But unless they had absolutely no idea about what they were doing the rest of the car was scuff sanded and will need to be painted anyway.

 

this is completely a waste of time, and near impossible to do but...

if its a shitty paintjob you're trying to remove that's on top of a stock oem paintjob (or quality finished respray), you could probably use a fine sand paper like 800-1000 on a da sander or wetsand it all off if visually, you know when you've hit the paint layer you're trying to keep. Although, chances of you eventually sanding the original paint job by accident are pretty damn high. Pressure hose could possibly spray off any shitty layers of paint that never had a proper bond to begin with but it wont hurt the original paint because original paint wont simply come off from water.

If that paint layer you're trying to keep was originally prepped and sanded at all before the shitty top layer was sprayed, then i dont see how you'd be able to save it at all because if sand prep was done, that means the mechanical bond introduced into the OEM finish is meshed in with the shitty toplayer. so to remove the shitty top layer, you'd be removing the original bottom layer.

in the end of the day its a waste of time, and highly unlikely you would be able to save the bottom layer. its better to just sand off all the shitty layer of paint and respray the whole thing. it was also a waste of time for me to even attempt to type this explanation out, because its a retarded thing to attempt. If your car was some vintage restoration that had original paint underneath that would make the car worth tons of money than it'd be reasonable to do. otherwise, sand and respray. your car is already multiple colors to begin with.

 

chances of saving the paint is useless might as well do all your body work and then repaint... but its your car, do as you wish

 

Alright, I see what you guys are saying now. I think when the time comes, I'll scrub off a few areas to check and see if the paint's scuffed at all anywhere. I highly, highly doubt it was considering the low level of work that's been put into the car in other areas.

We're talking cheapo ebay lightning mods on the dash, no-name offbrand ebay lowered suspension, it had 17 inch wheels on the goddamn thing (I bought new wheels and tires awhile back that are much better), and the overspray of that rattlecan white through the grille of the bumper and onto the radiator and wires for the horn just to name a few. It's had some really low quality treatment through it's life.

If no paint's scuffed on any areas I peek into I'll opt for a pressure washer. I might be able to use one at my work since it's probably higher psi than anything I could rent. Either way, I know rentable washers can take paint off of even a conex.

Now I've got more of a plan set out whenever I might get the money for this though.

 

I logged into this section to find answers on something similar, I will just start my own thread. Good luck

 

i bought a civic with a maaco paint job and it had runs and started flaking off down low around side skirts and hard to sand areas. Basically you get what you pay for. Now here I am. Sanded all white off back to original black and am learning a lot. But ppl out there want to take shortcuts. Time, patience, and money. Three things needed to make a job noticeable, unfortunately no one has.