i know this is probably a dumb question but i had my camaro repainted completely back in the fall of 2005 as alot of you guys probably remember. anyway, now about a month ago im noticing in the headlight buckets that the paint is starting to crack,hair line cracks that is. my question is what can i do to prevent this from happening even more? what is causing it on such a new paint job? ive already talked to the guy that painted it for me & he says its cause the nose got flexed & he would be willing to do it again.

 

It's because he didn't use enough or any flex additive in the paint he used.

 

is it possible he used too much??

 

The headlight buckets hardly flex at all compared to the lower front ground effects (they flex quite a bit). It is there that you would probably see any cracking first. It sounds to me like it would be the result improper surface prep causing poor paint adhesion and/or poor paint composition (as mentioned above).
Either way, it's good that he's offered to do it again (which is the right thing to do) regardless of what he thinks might have caused it. Let's hope he has better results this time around.
Very sweet ride by the way!!!

 

the guy you talked to is right, the face flexed. have you ever taken the nose off. it is really flimsey. its just so flexable, you could probably fold it up and put it in a normal garbage can. lol. there isnt much you can do about it though. just make shure all the hardware is tight, and all there. thats about it

 

thats what i thought too IROCTOPLESS cuz on my other camaro it done the same thing..cracked then peeled off. thanks for the compliments! he told me he uses something & after about 6 months it hardens & then dries out & has probably caused this to happen on the nose. i cant remember what he told me he used,ive wacked my brain trying to remember the name of it but i cant think of it is there anything else i can do to hopefully prevent this from happening again???

ive never had the front off but have heard others having problems with the nose sagging due to age.

 

Not drive it? As if we would leave our rides parked.

Never heard of sagging due to age as long as all the fasteners are in place. But they sure do flex and are a challenge to prevent the paint from cracking even when it's done right. Not to mention any fender benders, stones, curbs, etc, a car might see during it's life.

 

the nose on my berlinetta sags as those three holes. everywhere else it is fine. Never seen a solid nose one sag though (like a z28 style nose) And with the paint like stated above there are a few additives that can be added. one is an adhesion promoter for the urathane nose, and the other is a flex agent. the flex agent should not really dry out... it's main purpose is so that the paint is flexible through the lifetime of that paint for the plastic parts. He could have not mixed it right which would cause that as well. a little to little and I am sure it would harden just enough to crack.