My truck's got a bad case of the peels. I don't have the over $3K I've been quoted (plus that's more than I paid for the truck) to repaint it. How much damage could I do if I got a buffer/stripper and knocked off all the nasty bits? And what kind of products would be good to use?

Thanks for your suggestions!

Kathy

 

it you were to buff it it would make it worse or eat trough the paint, what buffing does it is cuts the clear coat away a little bit to get out imperfections. the only fix to it peeling is sand it down to bare metal and paint/clear it again. sorry for the bad news but all the 1st gen dakotas are bad about that.

 

Is it the whole truck that's peeling? If it's not the whole truck, you should be able to get by having the hood and the roof re-done (common areas) for alot less than 3k, or you could do those areas yourself for a little project, painting isn't hard, just requires patience and time, you'll need to get it down to metal, prime it, sand it, paint it, sand between coats, wet sand and/or use a rubbing compound before you begin with the clear coats, rattle cans work, the professional style paint gun is best, but if you take your time you can get great results for the price of some rattle cans, some masking tape, old newspapers, sand paper, and rubbing compound, heres a pic of the work I did on my '92's passenger side, it was done in the garage with some rattle cans:



Before and After, redid just the gray for the most part, had to redo the white paint on the roof, on the space behind the rear cab window,and on thepass door which aren't shown in these pics very well, nor is the other 4 ft of the bed, but at least I got enough in the pic you can kinda get the point

 

Thanks for the information! Makes me wish I had usable garage. On the other hand, how much worse could it look with bugs and tree bits stuck in it?

Pretty much every horizontal surface is either completely peeled or has puckered spots. Texas sun is very unforgiving. I'm looking into a carport but the list of 'gottas' is long.

Here are some photos just to show how sad it is. It's really really gone. That's why I sort of figured I couldn't make it too much worse by cleaning, buffing a little to knock the peeled edges off and just waxing the heck out of it until I have some $$$ to make it purty again.

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