I had my Defender resprayed about a year ago. The job was done by a professional respray garage. The have also don a job on one of our cars and they did a great job. You can't see anything. However on my Defender the paintwork has started to bubble along both front doors and the rear door.
What has he done wrong, or is this normal on a Defender. They were bubbling before the respray. I did see the work being done and it was rubbed right down and what looked like prime sprayed over it. Before taking it back I would like to be fully armed. Thoughts please?
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To be honest he probably did nothing wrong. He either didn't know about the issues on these with the ali/steel doors and the galvanic corrosion it causes, or he didn't feel he could do what was needed within his remit.
If it makes you feel any better I repainted my Landy about 3 years ago and took some fairly serious precautions to stop this, it has worked on the front doors so far but the back door has started to to the same as yours, there are now some small bubbles. I actually stripped the skin off my back door, binned the old skin, removed all the rust from the frame, cleaned it up really well, bare shiny metal. I etch primed the frame several times, then I painted the new door skin on both sides with etch primer, then I put a full bed of PU sealant over the frame I then bonded the two bits together and folded over the edges. I then seam sealed the door frame on the inside to the skin. I then painted the whole lot with my 2k paint. I even drilled drain holes in the frame and pumped it silly with Dinitrol!
However what I didn't allow for was the hideous handle arrangement, the water gathered in the rear door handle 'bath', rusted the frame up there got through the seams, the rusty water ran down the inside of the frame, and Galvor must have managed to set up his evil little base slowly eating my aluminium!
Front door was a different story, on the OS I removed the skin, repaired the frame and had it galvanised then fitted a new door skin, I still used the same painting and sealing as above but as zinc and aluminium are less reactive together it should last much better. On the new NS door I just seam sealed it extensively to try and effectively reduce the chances of water getting in between the metals and acting as the electrolyte - needed for the galvanic corrosion.
Also, I am not sure if later Defender doors were better assembled as to reduce this?!?
