'12 TTRS paint peeling???

[bsmack]

So my car has about 13.5k miles on it and I'm coming up on 1 year of ownership. The other day I noticed what you see in the pictures below. My questions:

-Is this normal??
-Could any sort of road rash caused this? I have the obvious dings on my hood, but this looks like the paint is peeling!
-What is the dealer going to do when I bring it to them? Do you think I'll have any problems?

[mtbscoTT]

Always hard to tell from pictures on the interwebz, but it does look like a paint flaw. Wouldn't hurt to point it out and see what they say, I once had the whole front facia of my E46 M3 re-sprayed as a warranty item due to some weird flaking.
I've had my car about a year now and 15K miles and I'm very impressed at how well the paint has held up. I'm not a fan of Clearbra and the "unprotected" front of my car has only two very minor rock chips that only I notice.

[- Jeremy -]

Take it in ASAP as I think you only have a 1 year warranty on paint flaws. But is that paint? Or is it part of the white plastic wrap they use during delivery that's stuck in the joint? My car was delivered with some of the plastic wrap still stuck in a few crevices inside my car. Either way, take it in so the dealer can check it out and F it up and not blame it on you.

- Jeremy -

[- Jeremy -]

Oh yeah... Wash your car, man. That thing is despicable

- Jeremy -

[bsmack]

It most definitely is paint. I'll try and bring it in today if I can.

I usually clean my car every 2 weeks, it seems like every time I have the time to do it it'll be raining though

[Marty]

Mine looks like that too in the same spot. If you pull on the plastic fender, you can pop the corner out to check it out more.

[bsmack]

What are you planning on doing about it marty? Are you OK with it? I have tugged at it a little bit to check it out.

[Marty]

What are you planning on doing about it marty? Are you OK with it? I have tugged at it a little bit to check it out.

I was just going to pop the corner of the plastic fender out there and remove the damaged bits, and maybe apply a little touch-up paint.

I suppose the alternative is to alert the dealer, but I'm not really sure what they'd do about it. I've had bad luck with body shops trying to do minor repairs like that (they put their least skilled guys on such a simple job, and they hack it), so if it's just touch-up work, I'd rather do it myself.

[aaronr]

My words of advice before you respray the bumper to fix this. I had a small 5 mph/4 way stop front ender with my Suzuka TTRS that should have been a quick bumper, fender and paint. My Audi dealer body shop said one week max. They could not get the color right, kept trying to blend, things got out of hand, and the entire car ended up getting re-painted. I was without it for months.

Be careful.

Aaron

[Marty]

My words of advice before you respray the bumper to fix this. I had a small 5 mph/4 way stop front ender with my Suzuka TTRS that should have been a quick bumper, fender and paint. My Audi dealer body shop said one week max. They could not get the color right, kept trying to blend, things got out of hand, and the entire car ended up getting re-painted. I was without it for months.

Be careful.

Aaron

I almost had a similar issue. I had a scrape from a hit and run and had the option of living with it with some touch-up paint, or doing a blended local respray. Given the subtleties of the Suzuka Gray color, I opted for the touch-up. My nightmare scenario was the at needing a full respray to make it match, and any aftermarket paint job is never going to match the quality / long- term reliability of the high-temp baked finish from the Audi factory.

[aaronr]

For mine, they literally had to go down to bare metal/removal of all paint everywhere to make it look right. Between the color itself, the amount of pearl (which all really needs to be applied at the same time to be even), and the extreme (very very thin) amount of paint on the car from the factory- there was just no other way.

Original accident for me was less than $5000. Total repaint was $30,000.

Insurance company covered it after flying someone across the country to review the situation. They all ended up agreeing there was just no way it was going to match otherwise.

The shop that did the repaint is one of the 20 Audi Authorized body shops, did a killer job but it was alot of work.

Next time I'll buy Ibis white

I almost had a similar issue. I had a scrape from a hit and run and had the option of living with it with some touch-up paint, or doing a blended local respray. Given the subtleties of the Suzuka Gray color, I opted for the touch-up. My nightmare scenario was the at needing a full respray to make it match, and any aftermarket paint job is never going to match the quality / long- term reliability of the high-temp baked finish from the Audi factory.

[bsmack]

Well uhhh...I have no idea what to do. It does bother me a little, but not enough to get the whole car re-painted!

Should I just take it to the dealer to document it?

[Black BeauTTy]

Total repaint was $30,000.

Next time I'll buy Ibis white

Holy crap! $30K for the repaint is unreal. That's awesome that it got covered and was done properly though. Congrats. I hope Daytona is easier to work with than Suzuka if the need arises.

[- Jeremy -]

Daytona has A LOT more pearl in it than Suzuka. Daytona is like a Drag Queen's Glitter Dream. I love it

I imagine it would be even more difficult to get the pearl to match properly. Even though I hate non-metallic paints, there's something to be said about its ease of repair. Misano has slightly less pearl in it than Suzuka. It's hard to notice it at all, even in full sun. I suspect it would be the easiest of metallic TTRS paints to repair. But I don't plan on testing that theory any time soon

- Jeremy -

[bsmack]

*UPDATE*

So I called the dealership and they said it was up to manager's discretion as to whether it is a paint defect or not which I am completely ok with. From what everyone else has said I don't see this being a problem.

The person I spoke to over the phone did say that they would want to repaint the whole bumper. This is something I'm not really ok with because it sounds like my whole car will have to end up getting repainted and it'll be a long process of me arguing with them to do it.

Either way, I have an appointment Tuesday. If I decide to go this route it's going to require a sit down with the manager to set the expectation. I understand that they will at least need to attempt to match the color to say that they tried, but if they cannot match it after 2 attempts to my satisfaction I will want the whole car repainted, no questions.

[- Jeremy -]

I understand your acceptance of the problem especially since I'm very busy and don't have time to deal with headaches and hassles like that. I have enough stress at the office to deal with. Who needs that outside of work?

But it kind of bothers me because you shouldn't just accept a deffective product like that. The problem is absolutely a paint defect and it should be remedied. If anything, with just a touch-up pen or something. I, too, would not want a full bumper respray. But I think that Audi should do something to help alleviate the problem. Touch-up, clearcoat and a full detail? I don't know... Good luck!

- Jeremy -

[mtbscoTT]

I had an Amulet Red Gen I TT225 coupe. It wasn't noticeable at first but after having the car for a while you could see a slight variation of the color between the metal body parts and the plastic bumpers.
I'm a firm believer that a quality body shop should be able to and can match up factory paint, especially when it's fairly new and not faded. Plastic parts (bumpers) are always more of a challenge because of the additional flex agents needed in the paint, etc. In your case BSmack, if the flake could be carefully trimmed off and area around it sealed with touch up paint, I think I'd do that over a respray. I picked up some Dr ColorChip for a small rock chip on my Sepang Blue and it matches well.

[WGLance]

I remember reading, in an article about automobile paint, that the same paint on different material (plastic bumpers vs. metal body panels), will have a slightly different hue. Now, I don't understand why, I am just repeating what I read.

[DrDomm]

I remember reading, in an article about automobile paint, that the same paint on different material (plastic bumpers vs. metal body panels), will have a slightly different hue. Now, I don't understand why, I am just repeating what I read.

My Imola Yellow GTI was a good example of this.

[bsmack]

Took it to the dealership today and the manager didn't give his opinion on the issue or anything for what I assume to be liability reasons. They snapped some pictures and said they would send them over to Audi Corporate for the final say which I assume will be to go ahead and fix the issue. Now it's just deciding what to do...

I've talked to a few people about respray vs touch up and it's really hard to just pick one and side with it. One concern I have with a touch up is it happening again because of something underneath the paint.

[bsmack]

The manager got back to me and it was an extremely easy conversation. He said that it would be covered no problem and to just bring it in. I have gone with a respray and he did assure me that they can get it to match.

I'll let you guys know how it goes and I'll be sure to take pics for you guys. I'm planning on dropping her off next week.

[Harry408]

Any updates?

[Marty]

The manager got back to me and it was an extremely easy conversation. He said that it would be covered no problem and to just bring it in. I have gone with a respray and he did assure me that they can get it to match.

I'll let you guys know how it goes and I'll be sure to take pics for you guys. I'm planning on dropping her off next week.

They're going to respray the entire car??