Advice needed - should the Porsche dealer come clean on shoddy bodywork?

[maxeyj]

I bought a 2012 991 2S from Porsche West London last year and it looked beautiful when I bought it. About 12m later I noticed these parallel lines appearing on the front bumper so I decided to get it detailed by Surrey Detailing (great guys BTW) and see if they can fix it. They took one look and said most likely the front of the car must have got knocked gently when it was parked and the stress created these lines from the bumper essentially "bending" a bit. He decided to get two different bodywork specialists out and they both said this was caused by the bumper having been re-sprayed multiple times as that would be the only reason why you would get these lines. I decided to pay £250 to get them bumper totally resprayed (which I think is a good price). When the bodywork guys came back to me they said the bumper actually had 3 layers of paint on it and that there were still traces of "filler" from the last job. Furthermore, they had not resprayed the entire bumper but just a segement of it, so you could see a very fine colour difference. I was quite outraged and contacted Porsche West London, who told me that sometimes they will respray bits of second hand cars. The sales rep has told me he would speak to his managers but they are not being very forthcoming - I'm really quite surprised about this. So my question is: is this totally normal and should I just accept this? Maybe my expectations are too high, but I was quite surpirsed that a Porsche dealer would let this happen and not even offer to pay for putting this right.

On a more positive note, Surrey detailing is fantastic. I had the car covered in ceramic coating and it looks great now. Below are pictures of the bumper with the fracture lines and the 3 layers of old paint. I've also attached before and after pictures from the detailing.

https://imgur.com/a/aKHRI4Y

 

[pwebb]

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

I’ve visited a few Approved Porsche body shops over the years and seen many front ends removed, on stands, ready for repainting. Inevitably, stone chips will occur on the bumper as the miles clock up, so it is no surprise that your car was prepared like this (including a smidge of filler for the chips) when you bought it last year at five years old. In fact if had been sold before it would likely have gone through the same process so a couple of resprays of the bumper are not unusual.

If someone reversed into your car then damage like these cracks in the paint are again not a great surprise. £250 for a fix is not a bad price btw and you’d pay considerably more for that at the approved body shop. I think outrage is a bit strong in your view of the dealer‘s responsibility although they could have explained things a bit better to you.

The ceramic coating is a great finish for those of us who don’t like polishing that much ?? though of course it doesn’t prevent chips entirely.

Enjoy your car.

 

[ralphmusic]

Isn't paint covered under the 2 Year Approved Warranty?