My girlfriend owns a 2011 Nissan Altima and just discovered a large area of flaking paint on the hood, and is wondering whether it might have been caused by the shop that performed the 60k service yesterday.
Here’s the sequence of events:
She parks her car in an exposed driveway (partly under a tree) and as a result there was quite a bit of bird dropping on the car
On Monday afternoon she took her car to a full service car wash
On Tuesday morning she dropped her car off at a local service station for the 60k service. We picked it up in the evening
This morning when she went to drive her car she noticed the following issue (see attached photo)
So I guess the question is what could have caused this? She thinks it was something that the mechanic did, but I can’t imagine what. My theory is that the car wash did it when scrapping off bird droppings but I’m just guessing here.
She says it’s very noticeable while driving and is pretty certain that it just occurred recently.
No, the bird droppings were there for a long time (months?), and other than going to this type of car wash a couple times a year she hasn’t done any waxing. They mention a couple wax types on the coupon but I’m not sure if that would even count:
So what the suggested way to deal with it? Is there a reasonably priced fix or at a minimum something that can be done to prevent further delamination?
If it’s only on the hood, you can have only the hood repainted, and then start taking care of the paint from here on out.
Why is your girlfriend worried about whether or not the mechanic made her car look bad when she left bird crap on it for months and therefore obviously doesn’t care about what it looks like?
she probably thought the paint was good enough to protect it against bird do.
I have the same impression. the next rain will probably take care of it, if not, I really don’t care. I do know that checking every day is not worth the time.
If its not paint delamination, the only possible explanation is that a mechanic spilled some brake fluid on the paint.Brake fluid eats away paint like a paint stripper.
The paint damage is most likely unrelated to the service. There’s more areas where the paint appears to be damaged besides just where it has come completely off, look above the shadow of the hand. Commonly caused by too much sun exposure, parking in full sun for long periods of time, infrequent cleaning and waxing, etc. Repainting or replacing the hood is the way to go. It’s not going to look perfect showroom condition after a re-paint, but it will be much more presentable. I expect the car probably has other areas where the paint is damaged too, so inspect the roof, trunk lid in particular. If so, might as well re-paint those as well.
Going forward, four easy-to-do tasks that minimize this paint problem from happening again
Park in the shade whenever possible
Rinse the dust and grime off with a spray from a garden hose once every week or two
