Auto Paint Query

[KLS]

Excuse me? Why does s/he owe you or anyone else "details about his 'impairment'"? My interpretation, which no doubt you will reject, is that s/he is not comfortable making inquiries on the telephone (which, as Doug Miller pointed out, can be worked around by using the various relay services, but which are cumbersome compared with the ease that non-hearing-impaired people use the phone), or s/he may not understand people clearly when talking to them in person. Regardless, the OP is expressing a not uncommon feeling of uncertainty about the information being gathered, especially as a member of a group of people famously disconnected and cut off from the incidental flow of information you (presumably hearing as more than 90% of the populace is) take for granted. Some day you might be in this category, you know, and you'd appreciate a little sensitivity and respect.

[Tegger]

KLS wrote in news:r2gv849j8hi96bauuq5uv6s75s8tg45pgb@

4ax.com:

I AM in that category, hence my posts.

[KLS]

I still don't understand why you need details about his/her disability before allowing yourself to be sympathetic. Is there some "I'm more deaf than you" standard of yours s/he has to meet?

[J. Clarke]

The trouble with "touching up small areas" is that the paint, even with computerized color-matching, is never an _exact_ match, so just touching up a small spot leaves a visible repair. The way around it is to use the spray gun to "blend" the color over a relatively wide area resulting in a gradual color change that isn't noticeable.

[the_andrew_smith]

Is this the old SAAB? If so, roll that thing into Earl Scheib and tell 'em you want the $300 special.

You might want to ask if you can stick around and help 'em tape it, so they don't paint your tires, rims, and windows.

While we're on the topic, what appears to be the clear coat on my 95 BMW has blistered and cracked in a few spots on the trunk lid - must've been bird turd - any recommendations for that?

a.

[Mortimer]

I've found that touch-up paint is always darker than the real paint of the car - even on areas such as the sill of the boot/trunk or of the doors which don't see much sunlight so can't fade as a result of this. I've found that the best match comes from cleaning the brush in the lide of the tube of touch-up paint and then dipping it into the very top of the paint (which has been allowed to settle for a long time beforehand without shaking) so as to get the most dilute concentration of pigment in the base material. I know this goes against the advice to shake the paint throughly beforehand!

Providing the undercoat is the same colour as the top coat (*) then maybe it's better to cover it with clear lacquer rather than paint.

(*) I once had a car with dark green paint that had been applied on a white undercoat, so the least little scratch or stone chip showed up as white :-(

[PanHandler]

Is this the old SAAB? If so, roll that thing into Earl Scheib and tell 'em you want the $300 special.

You might want to ask if you can stick around and help 'em tape it, so they don't paint your tires, rims, and windows.

While we're on the topic, what appears to be the clear coat on my 95 BMW has blistered and cracked in a few spots on the trunk lid - must've been bird turd - any recommendations for that?

How would the overspray hit the "rims" and not the entire wheel? :-)

It's a good thing elephants don't fly!

[the_andrew_smith]

Overspray? This is Earl Scheib, that wouldn't be overspray. If it ain't taped, it's painted.

a.

[Scott Dorsey]

Hey, at least they use the spray gun instead of a 4" brush....

--scott

[Ike]

Take it to Earl Scheib. He'll paint ANY car for just Twenty-nine ninety-five!

[Doug Miller]

Friend of mine checked into that back in the 70s.... the ads said "we'll paint your entire car for only $29.95."

He found that was literally true.

If you wanted them to mask off the glass, tires, trim, headlights, taillights, turn signals, and so forth before they started spraying -- well, that was an extra couple hundred dollars.

[SteveB]

I remember a maintenance department pickup my highschool had painted back in 1974. Literally _everything_ was painted schoolbuss yellow except the headlights and the windows. We thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen.

Back then they had a $29.95 special, as I recall it, and my school got every drop of paint they could.

[Tegger]

KLS wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I know why you're doing this. You're just trying to be nice; to be a good person, sticking up for life's downtrodden. That's a normal reaction, and an admirable one. It helps prove that human beings are, in the main, decent, caring, and just want to help make things better. But in reacting this way, you're not seeing the difference between having a problem and using that problem as a self-serving ruse for other things.

What got my back up was the OP's use of official deaf-bureaucracy buzzwords, like "hearing impaired", and "disability", and then playing the victim card by saying he was worried somebody would "take advantage" of him because of his "disability".

I have one working ear, with a hearing aid stuck in that one (deafness diagnosed at age 5; am 46 now). I have less unassisted hearing than most people officially classified as deaf. In spite of that, I function more-or- less normally in hearing society. It irks me no end to have the deaf and/or hard-of-hearing crowd pull the victim thing.

Just speaking for myself, of course, I find the idea of victimization to be grossly insulting, as is the idea of "impaired" or "disabled", especially in the sense of that condition requiring me to receive special treatment, or making me subject to specially bad treatment.

[salty]

No it wasn't. The labor charge was 29.95. The extra cost was for materials and paint. It was not anywhere near a couple hundred dollars. The masking job was not always exactly perfect, but they did mask the car. You can still get a "production" paint job a Maaco today for about $400 complete.

[salty]

Sounds very distinctly like a personal problem.

[KLS]

I think you forgot that after warming up the OP with a little sympathy, I told him/her s/he really had to get local quotes, period, and would get more productive responses here by posting those as points of comparison.

I understand this, too (you and I have a lot more in common than you might realize), but in my opinion your initial response was not instructive enough to the OP to avoid this kind of language. What you say here makes a lot more sense.

Don't forget: your success in society does not assure others' similar success. What works for you doesn't for a lot of people, especially if they can't talk or speechread. And simply notifying people that they're deaf or h-o-h isn't a "pull the victim thing" in my book as it helps people understand whom they're dealing with. But I do agree that often this information is irrelevant to matters at hand on newsgroups. Cocktail parties and job interviews are entirely different situations.

Makes sense to me, too.

[Doug Miller]

I'm just telling you what my friend told me...

[Mercellus Bohren]

ote:

e:

Now that's funny.

[N8N]

In addition to the other suggestions you've received on this issue, if you want to try to fix it yourself, you could do the following...

make sure that the touch up paint that you have applied is *above* the surface of the original paint. If not, put some more on. Get to a real auto paint supply and get yourself a "nib file" or "run razor" or similar device, an assortment of fine (1000-2000) grit sandpaper, a good power buffer and lambswool pad, and some polishing compound. Explain to the counter guy what you're trying to do, he will likely be able to offer recommendations on specific products to use. Carefully bring the level of the touch up paint down to the level of the surrounding paint with the nib file, taking care not to actually cut into the original paint. Then wash the panel THOROUGHLY with dish soap and warm water, rinse, and wet sand the panel lightly with fine grit sandpaper - nothing you'll find at your local hardware store, start with 1000 or 1500, work up to 2000. Don't try to take a whole lot of paint off, you're just gently smoothing the surface. Then buff with polishing compound on a lambswool pad, wash again with your dish soap, and apply two or three coats of good wax.

enjoy!

nate

[Mercellus Bohren]

Damb, Nate. The rscking intertubes were useful today. Thx bud.