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why is paint coming off vehicle when removing vinyl?
I’ve recently done a job for a customer on a petrol tanker, the tanker had been recently painted and the customer was rushing us to fit. When one of the fitters tried removing vinyl that had been applied in the wrong place the paint came off with it.
The customer has now come back to us saying that he wants his taker re-sprayed!!Anybody have any ideas on what route i should take?
Advice would be greatly appreciated.
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29 Replies
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Hi Mate
I had the same problem once but the paint was coming off with the application tape, i put it down to a bad paint job, I not an expert on paint but i would of thought if its done correctly then it shouldn’t come off.cheers
Lee -
If the spray job was any good i don’t think that should happen. Stand firm and blame the cr*p paint job.
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When i went down and checked over the tanker the spray job was not great, the paint was not applied evenly and there was rust behind. However the customer is one of those individuals that takes no S**t. so if i tell him to forget it, i feel he will tell me he’s going to take legal action.
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quote :When i went down and checked over the tanker the spray job was not great, the paint was not applied evenly and there was rust behindsorry but if you checked this before fitting and did not cover you self by telling the customer it is likely to give problems, you made a rod for your own back.
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If the graphics came off then its your fault, if the paint came off its the painters fault, Wrong prep or undercoat, dont worrie its not your fault, stand your ground!
Ian -
nope i agree it isnt really your fault .its a case of bad paint prep. if it didnt come of with the vinyls it would have come off with the steam cleaner !! a week or so later .Another thing id point out is you dont say how long after it was painted that you were asked to later it …if its within a few days or so the paint still releases chemicals and can afect the vynil
Regards brian
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let him take legal action… perhaps recommend a good sprayer while your at it. put it writing too that the vinyl is designed to be last for a good number of years and state that you were rushed to apply vinyl on a freshly painted surface, perhaps get some backup from a spraying paints company of how long a vehicle should be stood and what primer process is needed after surface preparation.
More of a Examination report.
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I am inclined to agree with Chris here, and yes it goes against the flow,
but you agreed to apply the vinyl, knowing that it could be a problem on new paintwork.
But… you did a further wrong, you applied it (or your fitters did) in the wrong place, necessitating its removal, now, had you put it in the correct place, you would not have had a problem, and neither would your customer.I agree that the paintwork may have been bad, but unless you got a written disclaimer, you may well be liable to put the customer back in the position he was, before you applied the vinyl.
Perhaps some negotiation and a compromise is in order?Peter
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Had a similar problem here with a brand new vehicle – so had no reason to think that it would be an issue – the customer wanted a partial body wrap and halfway through changed his mind on the design…when we removed the vinyl from any of the plastic parts of the paneling, it pulled the clearcoat with it.
Everyone was running around in circles blaming everyone else until I got an independant report from an automotive paint expert … it turns out that the clear coat has to be applied within 8 hours of the base coat to achieve correct adhesion and the manufacturers cant do that because of the way their paint line is set up.. sooo the car dealer coughed up and was reimbursed by the car manufacturer.
Stand firm.. if its a bad paint job then no matter how you ‘paint’ it, it is still a bad paint job and as signwriters, we cannot be held responsible for a base prepared by a third party. While you should use your experience to advise if you think there could be a problem…you can only do your best and bad painting by someone else is NOT your problem
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I agree with Mark.
Even if it didn’t appear obvious when you saw it, you’d expect the paint would stick if prepared correctly. You can’t be held responsible for the painters apparently taking a short cut. He probably hassled the painter like he hassled you.
I’d stand my ground. You wouldn’t have much trouble in a court of law finding a paint technician to back up your claim that it was a bad paint job.
Tell him to supply the painters details so you can take legal action against him.
Penny to a pound the painter was a ‘mate’ and he’d not be too keen on you taking his mate to court. He’s probably got away with many ‘claims’ in the past because people are too frightened to call his bluff.
Been there, done that, got the shirt.
You’ve learned a valuable lesson though. On any job I do on a vehicle, freshly painted especially, I always put in writing, on my quote, that I’ll take no responsibility for any damage to paintwork as a result of poor preparation or incorrect application of the painted surface. I never do a sign on a freshly painted vehicle within 2 weeks of painting either.
I was asked to sign 3 old buses here for a short term promotion, but I lost the quote because I was too dear. I told the bus owner that the material I used would not remove the paint as it was a low tack type especially designed not to leave glue behind when it was removed.
The owner went with another sign shop. Taking note of what I said, they asked the other sign shop if his material was removable, without leaving the glue. He said yes.
Problem was it wasn’t. It was a permanent adhesive for a start, but very cheap to buy. When they removed the signs, it also took the paint off to bare metal. They made him pay for the complete respray of all the buses.
The difference between his situation and yours, was that the client asked the question and the sign guy didn’t know his product, nor did he think it through. So he was liable.
You were not made aware that the paint would come off if the incorrect material was used, so you were not dishonest in this application.
Long story short, I’d get legal advice, but I’d call the guys bluff. Tell him to take the matter up with his painter. End of story.
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Hi Bneread
I also would think that the paint job was at fault in the prep stage
Don’t give in M8
Paul
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Fuel tankers are double skinned barrels with a stainless jacket. Unless the surface was etched prior to painting then it aint going to stick very well. If it is as above, this might give you a barganing point, but at the end of the day, the graphics were put in the wrong place…………Could be an expensive learning experiance………………..
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Get yourself some photos now for future reference if needed!!
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This is a typical instance where membership of the Federation of Small Businesses is useful as you get free legal help.
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It does seem that you will have to take some responsibility seeing that the graphic was put on the wrong place to start with. Talk to the painter…see what he can do to improve the situation….can paint be re blended? repainting the whole lot sounds nuts. If you shift blaming to trying to work together with the painter, surely he is not unreasonable and at the end of the day you all want to see this job finished and away, and it is the making of a business as to how you deal with problems, so see it as a positive learning thing for the future (tho it probably doesnt seem it now!) Times like this it is good to be insured, if the worst comes to the worst.
Accept it….deal with it…move on. -
I don’t see why repositioning the graphics should make the sign supplier responsible for a faulty paint job failing. Tight-aarse bullies like to blame others when their pushy bottom-dollar game plan goes off the rails. In this case it sounds like he’ll only get away with what you’re prepared to give him 😉
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We all do cock ups on occasions especially if you are feeling bullied into it….and to rush fitting onto a freshly painted vehicle is one, I know what is like to do an expensive cock up, mine was not unlike this case..been there myself and just made a loss to make customer happy (he was not unreasonable tho in my case)….and I did get more work after that because he was happy at the way I handled it…even though I felt full up with resentment at the time. I got insured right after. Made me personally much wiser.
I hope I am not about to walk into another cock up for sounding unsympathetic….because that is not true………..I really sympathise with you bnread..Id much rather we never had any problems ever -
quote Bill McMurtry:pushy bottom-dollar game planMy instincts are with Bill’s advice, the paint shouldn’t come off so its not you fault.
I had a re-read of your posts and would have felt better if you had stated that you explained to the customer that you weren’t confident about the surface you were working on after you first inspected it mond you.
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I also agree with Bill, who ever did the bad paint job must re-do it and you will have to replace the graphics that got damaged when you had to remove them because of your positioning error. The only difference in how good or bad these situations go are down to how much you covered yourself in the beginning, the more you made the customer aware of potential problems the easier it will be to negotiate.
Warren
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Had another today…brand new scissor lift in for graphics before going out on an 8 week hire. Lift was fresh in from USA and had ‘made in USA’ lexan badges smack in the middle of the platform sides…these have to come off to put the customers graphics on. One side came off fine and the other pulled off a heap of paint (no adhesion to the steel at all). The customer was standing there watching and immediately phoned up the machines NZ agents and got the OK to have the machine repainted when it came back off hire plus new graphics at the agents expense.
Moral… shoddy paint work ain’t your problem and any reasonable customer knows that..
The real issue for the customer is that if the paint came off that easy from a small patch in the first place…thats a fair indication the whole job will break down sooner rather than later.. it need to be redone.
Unless the future value of the customers business is significant.. stand firm
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We had this about a year ago, a customer whom we just supplied graphics for such as his url and company name for him to fit, emailed complaining the urls had come off a vehicle taking the paint with them. I pointed out to him that the vinyl was doing it’s job properly and that it was still stuck to the paint and the problem lied in poor preparation and painting(I knew it was him had done the paint so this made it extra fun).
Never heard from him again 😀
Let him take whatever action he likes, you are not at fault. The cheap paint job is.
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Don’t always bank on your insurance covering you with something like this. We had a similar case with a £120k Rally Car. When we removed some of the old graphics, some of the Kevlar came away.
The client tried saying we had used a chisel to remove the graphics (yeah I know!!), approached our insurers (the broker had been in doing an inspection when the car was in), only to be told that we would not be covered.
Ended up picking up the bill for this one (wrote to the customer saying that we would do this as a gesture of goodwill, in full and final settlement of the issue, and in not admitting liability for the damage).
Fortunately, the cost of the repair bill was only half of the value of our invoice, so didn’t really knock us too much.
Learned from this one, and will never make the same mistakes again!
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Thanks for you all help and comments, it has reassured me that i am not to fault in regards to his paint job. I’ve scheduled a meeting with him tomorrow and will have to see where it goes. I’ve checked and my insurance premium covers me with some excess but no where near the figure he was quoting for a new paint job. However i am going to stand my ground and see where this leads me. From now on disclaimers are the first thing I’m going to hand over when a contract is agreed upon. I’m a new user to UKsignboards and you have all helped me greatly. I will let you know the future progress of this case in due time.
Thanks Ben
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quote bneread:I’ve checked and my insurance premium covers me with some excess but no where near the figure he was quoting for a new paint job.
Thanks BenBen, this should ring some bells.
He’s trying to get your insurance company to get it resprayed properly.
I’d suggest when you meet him, ask for the name of the original painter, and explain that you are going to get your insurance to recover the costs from him.
I’d respectfully suggest you are about to be scammed 👿
If your insurance company send out a claims inspector to check the damage, and he determines it was an incorrect application of the paint, they’ll reject the claim and you’ll be left holding the bag. His insurance company would not cover him either, that’s why he is probably trying to get the money from you.
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I agree with Shane, he probably paid a case of beer for the rubbish paint job he now has, but wants a grand off some sucker to have it done properly :lol1:
You really need to know who did the crap paint job and how much they charged.
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There’s something fishy here – for a start it wouldn’t need a complete respray, only repairing the damaged areas ( if your car scraped the bumper, they wouldn’t respray the complete car to fix it ! )
It does sound like either a lash up of a paint job, or that the paint was still really fresh and hadn’t cured properly, in which case the graphics shouldn’t have been applied anyway as you would get loads of problems with outgassing from the paint causing bubbles.
Person you should ask is Richard Urquhart on here as ( IIRC ) he was a vehicle sprayer previously and would know a lot more about it.
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I would tell him to sling his hook, tell him you have taken vinyl off hundreds of vehicles including freshly applied stuff and it was fine.
If the paint was going to come off that easily, then it shouldn’t have been out of the spraying shop until it had either cured or been done right, someone walking past it and rubbing a leather jacket on it could just as easily have taken the paint off by the sound of it.
Id even be tempted to put some more vinyl in a different place just to show him that comes off too. :lol1: -
Interesting opinions here.
Surely the paint job was not fit for purpose and that is provable, because with a reasonable test of adhesion it should not come off as a result of vinyl application. In fact with an absurd test for adhesion it should not come off and there are probably BS standards covering this.
Why it was not fit for purpose, bad preparation, bad paint mix etc is of no consequence.
Peter
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So, Ben…..
How did you finish up with this problem?
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