Pretty upset on how the dealer and SOA are taking care of my paint problem...

[wrx1234]

Back story:

I was washing my car and saw a black spot, put my rag in the bucket of water and scrubbed thinking it was a bug or dirt at that point the spot was about the size a dime if not a tad smaller. After a few scrubs i look at it and it turned in to he size of a quarter, the paint keeps flaking off and its about double the size of the quarter now.

I went to the dealer thinking this was an open and shut case, even if there was a small impact there is no reason the paint should keep flaking off the way it is. The car is 22k miles on it and it was stored in a garage for 1 year while i was in Korea, so the paint hasn't even seen 3 full seasons. The service rep went outside and looked at the paint, she told me they can make paint calls so she has to take a picture and email it to the regional manager or whatever. She whips her Iphone out and takes 1 picture. That 1 and only picture was use to determine that the paint was impact damage and not covered.

Even if a pebble hit the bumper there is no reason why the paint should keep peeling with no signs of stopping.





You tell me, am i wrong?

[Heide264]

Sorry to hear man =(

I have a dent on my door and it went all the way down to the metal. It blows. Luckily the pain isn't flaking like that though. That really suck.

Maybe talk to your insurance about it?

Crappy situation.

[BPanda]

Wow, that's terrible, so sorry to hear that. I hope SOA does the right thing and helps you out with your paint, I'd wage war if that was my car.

[jdmsubielvr]

not quite clear on whether or not that's your bumper but it looks like when you buy cheap after market bumper and paint it with the flex additive and it flakes right off. are you sure that car wasnt hit before

[matt_12787]

yeah i would check on the inside of the bumper and see is you see any subaru stickers or after market stickers like keystone. Could be several different things. Could just be a factory mess up or the bumper could have been replaced/repaired and not preped right.

[BPanda]

not quite clear on whether or not that's your bumper but it looks like when you buy cheap after market bumper and paint it with the flex additive and it flakes right off. are you sure that car wasnt hit before

Yeah, it's definitely the bumper, you can see his front plate and the lower grill.

[wrx1234]

not quite clear on whether or not that's your bumper but it looks like when you buy cheap after market bumper and paint it with the flex additive and it flakes right off. are you sure that car wasnt hit before

The car was new, i am the one and only owner.

[wrx1234]

like i told JDM, i bought the car new... it's just crap Subaru paint

[Hung_Wei_Lo]

Do you wax the car or anything? Just trying to see how I can prevent something like this from happening to my car.

[mangostick]

This is what I'd do if I were you. Take it to a non-affiliated body shop and show them the damaged area, ask them what might cause said damage and peeling on a NEW car. Get them to write up an estimate for repair.
Once you have their description and lots of high res pictures to demonstrate the issue, go through your warranty paperwork and find the paint perforation section. Make sure you copy it and keep it with your other information.

Take that straight to SOA.. skip the dealer for now since apparently they're incompetant. Dealers also get shafted on labor when going through warranty claims like this. They take the hit and then are reimbursed by soa after the fact. It could very well be that they're being stingy.

Granted, regional rep will still be the same however you dont know what the dealer told him or if they even sent him/her the picture they snapped. Send him/her the entire packet of stuff you've put together.

Impact damage doesn't PEEL off.. the front of my 2010 literally looks like the surface of the moon after 85K mi of highway use. None of my paint is peeling... its just missing lol. What you have is poor adhesion and they should cover that since it IS a mfr defect.

[wrx1234]

SOA called me back, not much was accomplished the lady looking at my case was sick so they called just to let me know they are looking in to it. They told me the rep that looked at the pictures said he couldn't tell, the dealership said that he claimed impact damage when he saw it... All this from one Iphone picture.

Also a guy i know that does body/paint work looked at it he said that even if impact damage chipped the area it shouldn't keep peeling off like it is. Only area that was hit should peel off because it was impacted and it flexed/bent cracking the paint. The area affected didn't show signs of either when he looked at it. He said it looked like the paint didn't grab on to the surface of the bumper and odds are it wasn't prepped right when painted, he thinks other areas might start peeling in the near future.