Well, after washing my car and looking for door dings, I've discovered another paint imperfection... I noticed that one of the body panels (the small, plastic body panel just above the left tail light and to the left of the trunk) is not quite centered and in fact is pretty mis-aligned (looks like it's pushed to the right and up). Anyway, I noticed where it is touching the panel above it (which is metal), that the paint is flaking off... since this is a body-panel alignment issue that is causing the paint flake, would this be covered under warranty (my car is 1.5 years old, so I know the paint warranty has expired...)? I'm having my door ding fixed tomorrow so I thought about swinging by in the morning to ask, but I don't want them to laugh at me either for something that you can hardly see...

Thanks

 

Monotaur - The lack of response here tells us this may be sort of a gray area. Had you brought this misalignment to the dealer's attention very soon after purchase, there would have been no question about warranty coverage.

I feel, even at this late date, this should be a warranty item. But in all honesty, a lot will depend on the dealer you take it to, how good a relationship you have with him, and what kind of mood he happens to be in the day you show him the problem.

Approach it as you did here: a misalignment problem rather than a paint problem.

Good luck.

 

Worse that can happen is that they say no. But i have to admit, 1.5 years into the game would seem to be a little late for this type of issue.

 

Thanks for the replies, all.

When I took my car to the dealership's body shop, I asked the service department first if this would be covered under warranty - and either he had too much caffeine that morning or was too busy, and so he said that the body shop manager would have to decide on that... so, I only had a few minutes until I had to drop my car off and get to work, but I asked the body shop manager about it and he said he'd look at it. Anyway, he just fixed it (without really giving an estimate on it first, but as it turns out the total bill was lower than his initial estimate anyway).... here is a pic of the final fix.... if you look really closely you can see some extra paint on the edge of the panels:



Thanks!