Originally Posted By: strat81
Originally Posted By: heynow
In my experience it is rare to find a shop that re-applies only the clear coat, especially if the base coat needs repair as well.
That is my experience as well.
Once all the prep work is done, it's worth paying the extra money for a quart of color to be applied in addition to the clear. New basecoat greatly reduces the chance of the parts looking "repaired".
But there are plenty of hacks out there that will do whatever you tell them to do. A good shop will try to educate the customer and if the customer insists on having questionable work performed, the good shop will turn them down, as the shop's reputation is on the line.
ETA - Looking at pics of the bike, I see lots and lots of curves. Curved surfaces can pose a challenge as when sanding the surface, you run a greater risk of sanding through to the bare metal. A shop can go slow to reduce that chance, but then you pay more for labor. Or, they'll sand it down quickly, then prime and seal as necessary before laying down color and clear. TANSTAAFL.
Sharp looking bike, btw. It's nice to see something different than the typical Harley.
I don't want to have the bike done this way as a cost saving measure, I'm doing it because I like the factory color, which is difficult, if not impossible to match. The color is called nebulas black (I think)...it has blue metallic in it. There is a company called Color Rite that makes this color (specifically this factory color), but I have had many say it doesn't match, and I know of no one whose had success trying to mix their own paint and get it to match...thanks by the way, I do get a lot of compliments on this bike...