Major clear coat problems
 

Was washing the car today and noticed some dirt under my passenger back window. Couldn't get it out with normal washing or clay bar so I went at it with my fingernail. Good news: got the dirt off. Bad news: turns out the dirt was just trapped under the clear coat and what I took off with my fingernail was the clear coat itself. Now I have major clear coat chipping/peeling. Looks like the clear was poorly applied to begin with since I can see peeling in places I didn't touch and obviously the dirt wasn't supposed to be under there. Pics below.

How do you guys think I should take care of this? Is it possible to just add more clear coat and blend it with the existing coat or would this actually have to be repainted? Estimated cost at a body shop?

Thanks for the help.

Repaint would be needed. I don't believe adding clear would help.

I'd try to get this covered under warranty.

If you can't, you're looking at $400-600

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Two potentially dumb questions:
1) for the new vehicle limited warranty, can I take it to any chevy dealer or does it have to be the one I bought the car at?
2) why does this require repaint and would they have to repaint the whole panel? Seems excessive but then again I know very little about body work so please excuse my ignorance. I'm just not understanding why simply adding clear coat wouldn't fix it

Any dealer.

You can't just add clear. They'll have to sand all the clear off and then respray.

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Makes sense. Thanks

If the car has been been repaired in that area I don't think GM is going to cover the new repair, just repairing the clear coat can be done but all of the bad clear has to be removed first.

Got some electrical tape to cover up the damage and at least keep it from getting worse until I get it looked at. Actually blends in with the frame around the window pretty well

Has the fender been repainted before, didn't you have some paint problem before?

I've had body work done but this quarter panel was never repainted. I actually noticed a hair trapped under the clear coat in the same general area (next to the gills) when I first bought the car. Hoping the dealer is reasonable about this.

It looks like it has been resprayed, maybe at the factory? At the very least they would need to sand the run out, but might need a respray.

If there is a hair under the clear I find it highly unlikely its a factory job... the cars are sprayed in 'clean room' type conditions by a robotic process. Would be very very very hard for anything like that to make its way onto the car during spraying.



Seems like something is fishy - at some point it had to have had something unusual happen.

Not saying this is the case, but I do know of instances where a 'new' car was reshot at the dealer due to damage in transit. The car was hit by debris while on the trailer from the factory to the dealership. It was minor damage, but still nothing anyone would want on a new car so the dealership bodyshop repaired and resprayed the panels that were affected and the car was still sold as 'new'.

That's interesting. If that was the case, would it not be covered under warranty? I would think it should be since the work was performed by GM and it happened before I purchased the car. Does it really have to be a factory defect?

I would guess so, but I'm also not a GM warranty expert so take that for what its worth. I'd definitely venture to a dealership and show them the issue to start.