[DAVID GAGNARD]

Doug/Tom;

In no way did I want to put any blame on SPF for the paint problems,after six years anything could have caused the problem unrelated to the original paint applied at the factory,just relating some of my past expirences with paint "bubbles"....

Doug,I am ICAR certified and have attended and still attend "paint clinics" put on by the paint maufacters since 1980 to keep up with the current technologies and I agree with everything you have said..... I'm very familar with the two part systems and how they work and how they are supposed to work,but when they were introduced I do not think the people training us new all they should have known about how they work and how they are supposed to work... when the PPG rep came to our shop to introduce us to DP 40 and a few other products,according to him it would change the way we prepped and painted autos,we always followed his (PPG)instructions (printed version he gave us,sorry I do not have it anymore) about using DP40 and it bit us in the ass more than once until we quit using it and a lot of other PPG products.......Seems they were more interested in selling their product at that time than backing it up......I remember we had many many problems with the PPG brand of paint back in the mid eighties and we were not alone,that's when we switched to SIKKENS and most shops in the area did back then..... Not only we found SIKKENS to be a better product but it was quite less expensive to boot.....having said that the local PPG jobber has all but gone out of business here and for a good reason,while other jobbers (SIKKENS/Dupont) are flourishing....

In fact,we were the first shop to use SIKKENS in the area and many paint clinics were put on at our shop since to demonstrate the product and intoduce new products.......

My main problem with PPG besides the cost was the amount of inventory one had to carry with almost every product needing a "different" reducer/thinner/hardner in at least three different temperature ranges....and the lack of tech support and warranty support,I could tell you horror stories about their warranty program,always blaming the shop for any problems...Once it was found out by PPG they had sold some contaminated reducer and they still refused to warranty any of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doug, how about "factory fallout" on new vehicles,we did the body and paint warranty for the local Ford dealership for 10 years,have seen tons of it on those big white LTDs/Mercurys.........

David