I just had my fenders rolled (actually he used a rubber mallet instead of the fender roller tool.....not sure why...) but anyway they are rolled up out of the way now, but the paint cracked like a ****. Not only cracked, but is now basically flaking off in various spots. The guys at the shop pretty much expected the paint to crack, and I guess I partially did too because of how crappy this paint is. Anyway the underside of the flakes is white and the surface underneath the paint is white. The shop guys said that is the primer, and not the bare metal. If that's true then I'm in OK shape, I can just remove the flakes and hit it with some touch-up paint and clear coat. But if they were wrong and it's actually the bare metal that I'm looking at, then I need to sand and prime too.

So does anyone know what the color of the bare metal is vs. the primer?

 

Bare metal...well..I think you should know the answer to that.

Primer...primer can be practically any color, but most body shops that I have seen use a grey-ish primer.

 

The grey primer is usually a high rise primer body shops tend to like plus makes a very good color to paint over vs say white or black depending on what color the car is.

 

Grey primer is pretty popular with the shops

 

you obviously heated the fender right?

but anyway, i used the rolling tool. then a couple weeks later i finished the entire fender myself from end to end. with the heat gun (of course) and a metal mallet. just to fold the inside more.

paint flaked on the inside of course, but no damage is visible.

 

Actually the guy had the roller tool (the blue Eastwood one), but he said he could just use the rubber mallet to do the whole job. I'm not really happy with that, but oh well lesson learned. The paint flaked on the inside but a lot of it flaked near the bent corner. So last night I went out there and flicked off any paint that was raised, which unfortunately in some spots meant that there was visible paint missing from the exterior.

Once I got all the loose paint flakes off I washed the exposed (assuming primered) areas with dish soap and water, dried with a clean towel, then sprayed wax / grease remover on the areas, wiped clean and dry with a towel, then I applied my Nissan touch-up paint. Took care of most of the areas but have more to do after work today. Last night I was able to do 5 coats on each spot, but each spot is still indented so I need to put some more paint on there to build it up. Before adding more layers I will apply the wax and grease remover again to maximize paint adhesion. The plan is to layer the touch-up paint to just above the level of the surrounding paint, then use high-grit sandpaper to knock it down to the same level, then polish/buff them out.

Even at this point you would never see the spots from a couple feet away, but I just want to go the extra mile to avoid any paint flaking or corrosion in the future.