2015 Buick Encore - Paint peeled

My encore hood paint just pealed off in a huge spot for no apparent reason, and now bare metal is showing!!! What the heck? It is only 7 years old. Should have stuck with Toyota I guess, thought I would give them a chance.

Yet we see many more complaints about Toyota paint than Buicks!

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In the past 15 years or so manufactures have switched to paints that give off fewer air-polluting chemicals. So may be related to that. You could try the forum search feature here, upper right this page, to see what others have said about recent model year’s automobile paints. I don’t recall seeing an unusual number of paint complaints about Buicks here myself. Some paint colors tend to have more problems than others. What color is your car painted?

It is Blue. I may have figured the cause. My daughter said the mechanics did not hook a vacuum hose back correctly when they replaced her catalytic converter. I bet it heated the engine cavity enough that the paint peeled on the hood. What do you think?

Seems unlikely, first b/c the cat is under car, not in engine compartment. If a mistake was made during cat replacement that caused the engine to overheat, that’s possible I suppose, but there’d be audio alarms, dash-light warnings, etc. Plus the coolant temp gauge would read higher than normal.

As far as which color of paint seem most effected by the formulation change, IIRC it’s thelighter colors. Is it sort of a light blue, like the sky? rather than dark blue, like a pair of jeans?

Nope , that did not cause the paint problem . Sometimes things just happen . If this was purchased new the dealer might be able to get corporate to help with the repaint .

There has been a lot of GM vehicles with paint problems over the years, so you are not alone. there is even a class action lawsuit for some of them. As Volvo-V70 has said you can try calling corporate and see if they can help at least paying for part of the repair. but I doubt they will.
I would though sand the rust off the bare metal and at least spray it with a primer. otherwise, you will be dealing with a bigger problem than just a repaint if the rust gets too bad. like a new hood if it starts rusting through the hood. best of luck.

I don’t see owner complaints or manufacturer communications about paint problems at safercar.gov. I also looked up your 2015 Encore on carcomplaints.com and there is only one complaint for peeling or faded paint. It happened to you, but it doesn’t not appear to be widespread at this time.

Your owners manual has info on how to contact GM corporate. Do that, in writing. Don’t do anything to the bad paint area yet except get photos.

But first, contact your dealer to see if they can intervene to get you some help from GM. Sometimes there’s a goodwill program from manufacturer with this kind of thing. Don’t call it a recall - it is not.

You do know that primer absorbs moisture, and needs to be sealed or painted ?

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Yeah, unless you use a shop grade primer but you don’t get that in spray cans.