Paint fade on Caravan

mini1 · #1 06-18-2007, 01:41 AM

Hello all,
My mother has a 99 Caravan Sport (short wheelbase) with the 3.3L V6. She purchased it new in 99 and it has about 75k miles on it. She lives in the northeast. The vehicle has been garaged almost every night since new. The exterior color is "candy apple red". Over the years, the paint has been slowly fading. It started on the roof and moved down to the hood, now its onto the side panels. I'm professional detailer and I've kept up with the thing fairly well over the years. Well, the paint has gotten so bad now that the roof and hood are now a totally different color then the doors, lower lift gate and the front plastic bumper (which was covered in a clear plastic bra by the dealer when new). The vehicle looks horrible! The hood is nearly white in some areas and it's starting to bubble in a couple spots. All of the logos are peeling. She has replaced the Dodge logo on the front 3 times now because it keeps falling off. There is one trim peice on the front passenger side that looks like they forgot to clear coat it.....its just about white.

Now, I know this vehicle is 8 model years old and DC paint/clearcoat isn't the best....... what can I do? I want Dodge to pay to repaint it. They must have used the worst quality paint and clear coat they could find on this car. It's not like the car has sat in the blistering hot sun every day for 8 years. If it came from Texas or some southern state I might be able to understand. The dealer who she purchased it from has the worst customer service so I don't want to even begin to fight with them. She wants to drive the car for another 2 years then get something else. Where do I start???????

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chopper · #2 06-18-2007, 03:13 PM

Either leave it alone or have it repainted.
Chrysler isn't about to pay for a paint job for an eight year old van.I've seen several examples of the fading paint you describe so it's a fairly common occurance.Especially red colors.The rest of them just flake off and rust.
The color coat under most clear coat looks horrible when the clear coat comes off.You might be able to gat by enough to sell the van by doing just the clear coat,then selling it.
Carmakers give their buisness to the lowest bidder.If a company has a cheaper paint than the competitor guess who gets the contract to supply paint.

mini1 · #3 06-20-2007, 01:31 AM

Thanks for the info.

Is there anyone higher up at Dodge that I could bother to at least let them know how dissapointed I am with their shotty el cheapo paint?

chopper · #4 06-21-2007, 12:11 PM

Oh they know it all right!
With the amount of minivans still running around (like mine) with huge areas of paint missing I'm sure they see the error of their ways.
Contacting the main office might get you a "form response" but I doubt you will get any free paint.

mini1 · #5 06-21-2007, 07:34 PM

I brought the van into the dealer (where it was purchased in 99) and went to their body shop. They said that they would be happy to push the case against Chrysler and see how far they could get. The manager took pictures of it and is going to submit my case today. He agreed that it looks like crap and an 8 year old paint job shouldn't look like that no matter who applied it.