Is this paint misapplied?

We got the bronco back from the paint shop and this doesn’t look right.  

For starters, they put the new fenders on and painted right over the bolts holding it on. 

It’s been sitting for about 4 weeks and I finally was able to get a little time to work on it  

I had to remove the fender to install a hvac piece and the paint just started to peel when I pulled the bolts.

it is reportedly a 3-stage pearl/candy something paint. I don’t know what brand. 

My buddy says that the color should definitely not have peeled off of the silver base and that the color is too thick.  He said that it Is too thick to see the base through it which is the whole point. 

The color/paint is supposed to be the same as the new Mazda red that looks like a candy apple or similar.  It looks good but isn’t the same. It’s not as deep.

My friend is smart but isn’t a pro body/paint guy so I wanted other experienced opinions before I approach the shop.

So thoughts on the peeling and the thickness??

Paint should never ever peel like that, so obviously some mistake was made there.

Bummer. When it peels off in large flakes it's usually due to poor prep work. Since it is on top of a base coat I would imagine it's more of a chemical adhesion issue rather than a mechanical adhesion problem. 

Yep. Take it back. That is not right. Especially if it has been 3-4 weeks. 

My bet is to much or to little time between coats but that being said if the painter is an upstanding shop and did it correctly they should contact the paint supplier and get them involved. 

Probably wasn't prepped on the mounting surface

Sorry to see it on such a cool truck...

Doh, that is not good. Good luck getting that fixed with the paint shop. 

Ugh.  This is really concerning.  I really like the owner of the shop but no one is going to like to hear that potentially an entire paint job is bad.  

I still welcome any other thoughts on it so I can give them as much info as possible. 

Most of the time a paint job cost is all prep. Clearly they cut a corner to make a few more cents...

Take it back.

jfryjfry said:

Ugh.  This is really concerning.  I really like the owner of the shop but no one is going to like to hear that potentially an entire paint job is bad.  

I still welcome any other thoughts on it so I can give them as much info as possible. 

They should take one look at that and know they berkeleyed up.

Cotton said:

jfryjfry said:

Ugh.  This is really concerning.  I really like the owner of the shop but no one is going to like to hear that potentially an entire paint job is bad.  

I still welcome any other thoughts on it so I can give them as much info as possible. 

They should take one look at that and know they berkeleyed up.

...and be willing to fix it.

No a pro car painter, but I've painted a few cars, and one or two of them even looked OK.

As other people said, the top coat(s) should never peel like that, there's clearly a problem with the adhesion between the transparent-ish top coats and the flake base. I also would think that it was aggravated by them painting over the bolts, because that introduced shear forces when you had to undo the bolt. The fact that it "only" damaged the paint in this particular area could indicate that that's the area that they didn't prep or paint very well and the rest of the car might be OK. But it's not a good start.

There's also rust paranoid me wondering why they bolted on the fender before paint in the first place - you can, after all, see the black anti-rust coat where you removed the bolt. That's a great place for rust to start in the first place. I'm guessing they put the fenders on so they could get an even coat and you wouldn't end up with colour differences as we're talking metallic type paints here. That makes sense, but you'd think they'd come up with a way to hang the fenders without bolting them on completely.

If it's Mazda Soul Red, the flakes aren't that visible under indoor lighting but should really pop in sunlight. If they don't, there are too many topcoats. Although if you're saying it's not as deep as the OEM paint, it might be a case of them using a heavier tint on the transparent (top) coat and lay down fewer layers.