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Lotus in the Peak
28th - 30th June 2024

Door wait seals and paint repair


Jghwilton

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Due to some blistering from  previous bad repair on my doors (both passenger and drivers) I decided to have them repaired and resprayed. The guy I went to told me he had worked on fibreglass cars and when I mentioned he can have the car as long as he wanted to ensure the fibreglass was dry during the prep he assured me that was fine and the repair would be good. When I received the car back to doors looked like new and I was happy. 

However a week later I have noticed bubbles starting to appear under what looks like the top coat and sort of rippling further forward (the original repair was made about 3 inches in from the wing mirror). When asking about this he has indicated that due to my door waist seals being in bad condition at the end that must have let water in and under the paint. I've attached a couple of pictures of these and agree they are damaged in the normal place but the rest of the seal is complete and in good condition and the inner where it has lifted still seems OK. He has said he will only make good once I have replaced the seals (I believe going price is about £250 a pair). 

I find it a little hard to believe that these waist seals would have anything to do with the bubbling that has appeared in the paint work especially due to the bubbles being well back from the front of the damaged seal. I have tried to do some research if anyone else has had blistered/ bubbled paint due to naff waist seals and could find nothing. 

My question is do you feel like there may be truth in that he is saying and that the bad seals have caused the bubbling or do you think he is looking for a way out of fixing potentially poor prep work? I'm reluctant to pay for new seals if they aren't going to fix the issue and the paint bubbles are just going to come back again. 

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IMHO he’s talking bollocks. The problem with blisters is that they need someone who really knows their onions when it comes to putting things right, I suspect this bloke doesn’t because looking at your pic. On the down side your waist seals are not good and therefore give him an excuse. If you want him to put things right I suspect your going to have bite the bullet and get them replaced which then gives him no excuse for a perfect job.

If it was my car, I’d get the waist seals done, then take it to a paint shop who know what they’re doing, but appreciate this will be the most costly option. There’s no doubt that those blisters are due to poor paint adhesion, are they worse than this that were there originally?

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That's defo what I expected to hear. It is better at the moment (I didn't take a picture of before...) but it's getting worse by the day. 

One of my lines of thinking was explaining to him that I don't believe it to be the seals but say I will buy a new pair and get him to redo it... On the caviat that if it does it again he pays for the seals. That way he's obliged to make sure it doesn't happen again

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No it's metallic black (I forget the actual color name) I thought it looked a bit orange peeled - it was defo not the smooth glossy look you'd expect... 

I'll see if I can take it somewhere for a second opinion and go from there. It was £400 for the doors he charged. 

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If you’re up to a trip to Burton, I believe these guys know their onions http://www.edmondsclassicrestos.com 

Colour may be starlight black.

if he’s blaming the seals for the fault, is he planning to charge for the rectification?

My door seals were like that, no paint damage at all.  It’s quite a common fault.

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Get an opinion from at least two other paint specialists before deciding what to do. If they both agree - including any impact due to the less-than-perfect seals - that the blisters are at least in part due to poor workmanship, then present that to the person who did the work. 

If he doesn't agree to rectify then get the work done elsewhere and claim via Small Claims Court (you can use Moneyclaims Online). 

As an aside, Edmonds are well-respected. You could also ask PJS Lotus who they use these days. 

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Hi, sorry you are having problems, not good :(

The quality of the paint looks absolutely terrible to me - could be a poor photo I suppose but if not then there is no way that the clear coat should be so rough, it's spectacularly crap!

The shape of the bubbling in the last photo is slightly unusual, it's not the normal pinhead spots that you see with classic osmosis problems - where the water has either got through the paint surface itself or come through from the back of the panel. I agree with JE that this looks much more like poor paint adhesion due to bad prep or poor drying conditions etc.

Has the car been left outside in the recent wet/snowy/icy conditions? I ask because I've seen similar blistering that appeared in just a couple of days on an Elise that was covered in icy snow, in roughly the same place on the doors. I believe that area is well known for having problems*, which isn't going to help if the paint is already poor :(

(*A main dealer also once told me it was more likely on S2 cars up to 2006, although he couldn't explain why?)

Anyway, no way would I be taking my precious car back to the same guy. Get a second opinion from a known specialist, get it repaired properly and chase the first guy for a refund if you have the stomach for it. By the way, I'm sure there was a thread on TLF about someone making the tooling for making cheaper seals - might be worth a search on there to check?

Good luck, hope you get it sorted 👍

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Reason I asked about the colour was that I had the same issue with a Gunmetal S2 some years ago, it was brand new fresh from the factory and after a few weeks of ownership it started to blister just like in your pics. It’s a long story and I’ve probably documented it on here before, ultimately Lotus ended up replacing everything with the exception of the roll bar cover and the lower sill panels, the car was returned to me and the rear clam suffered the same again.
The final conclusion from an independent paint specialist was that a combination of poor preparation and poor paint adhesion were responsible for the blisters, DuPont were the paint manufacturers and Lotus dropped the colour shortly afterwards, but my car wasn’t the only one that suffered, the indi paint expert told me it would be extremely difficult to sort the problem without some serious kit which would involve “baking” the affected parts, this is probably why Lotus replaced rather than repainted.

S2 panels are more susceptible to micro blisters due to the fact that they are pressed(very similar to traditional metal panels) they are then finished using a water jet, any tiny pockets of air in the pressed panel will contain moisture which will eventually make its way out through the paintwork and give tiny blisters, cold and very frosty weather can accelerate the problem. Lotus used to keep their back stock of clamshells outside, stacked on top of one another, unpainted in a field🙄, I believe this practice ended around 2005 which might explain what Duncx has been told.

Feel for you, it’s a shitty situation to be in, especially when you’ve shelled out your hard earned cash. Get a second and even a third opinion and go back to the original guy armed with the evidence. Give him a choice, refund, or see you in the small claims, at least you’ll have some money to put towards a proper repair.

Good luck

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