A little backstory: Back in May 2017, I bought a used 2005 Dodge Neon from an individual seller. Due to my limited knowledge, I bought the car with a rebuild title, not knowing what that entailed, but I only payed $1,500 for it and I haven't encountered any real issues thus far (knock on wood), but suspect it may have had water damage. My mechanic checked it out, and the car runs great, given the circumstance and it's age, and I'm really not too terribly concerned with aesthetics. Now, the car is a strange, muted, flat orange color (I refer to it as "Pumpkin Pie" color), and this is obviously not the factory paint (you can tell by the inside of the doors, and now because of the chipping, are a sparkly, darker, "normal" orange color).

The actual problem: So, this weird paint job is, like I said, chipping around the body seams, under the handles, and in other places where the car has been bumped too hard. Now, I know next to nothing about paint jobs, but my dad said it looks like there is no clear coat on it. I cant afford to repaint or clear coat it right now, but is there anything I can maybe put on the seams and other places that it is chipping to prevent further chipping? Like I said, I'm not that concerned with how it looks, but I'm worried the chipping might uncover rust spots.

Anyway, to summarize, is there anyway to prevent a crappy paint job that likely doesn't have clear coat from chipping?

Sounds like one of Maaco's "economy" paint jobs which can be a single stage paint of some kind (enamel, urethane, whatever....) which indeed does not have clear over top of the single stage paint. They do kind of a "scuff and blow" on those, hence the chipping. Personal opinion, it's not that the paint is sooo bad it's more like "little to no prep. work" is the problem. Had a buddy that did all his own prep. work down to metal and did his own primer, THEN had Maaco blow over it with a single stage....that was 6 years ago and nothing has even begun to chip on it. When you get chips....what color is under the chips? Factory color or primer???

It looks like factory paint underneath, no primer or bare body. The paint job is definitely bad. It's bubbly and thin in places, and it looks like it might be a single stage paint but I cant tell.

I just didn't know if there was a way to protect the areas that are chipping. I have no clue if there is rust or just dirt or something under the bubbly spots, because like I said, I suspect the car may have had water damage at one point.

Yeah, it was just a quick scuff and blow over. If the chipping is kind of at the edges and form some patterns you could maybe do something decorative with some vinyl wrap. As for anything coating wise nothing will really stop the chipping.

Okay, thanks for your help, here's some pictured of the edges that are chipping.



What do you mean by vinyl wrap, and where could I get it from? (I have never done any body work on a car and my limited knowledge of paint is from research I've done in the past few days)

Wow, that paint looks paper thin..... Go on YouTube and look up.... car vinyl wrap.... You'll see entire cars being wrapped in vinyl. Stuff is basically peel/stick and manipulate with a heat gun. You can go on ebay and find it in various degrees of quality/price. My idea would be to just get a color of wrap as close as you can to your existing color and kind of "trim" those weatherstrip/body lines. Only problem with your car is the vinyl wrap adhesive is pretty aggressive so you'd have to be careful how you lined it up or you would start pulling more of that paint off. Just kind of a last ditch effort to save what's left of your paint anyway......trust me your paint is pretty much history.....

Okay, here is a notoriously bad area on this model Jeep and my grandson didn't want to invest in a new tail gate. I did some quick body work and did faux carbon fiber wrap over it in black. Body work, epoxy seal, and wrap work/ maybe 2 hours tops. Good to go for college again.

No need to protect what's underneath unless it starts to rust. To fix this and not have problems again a year from now you will have to strip and repaint the whole car. I would be afraid a vinyl wrap would just start peeling off with the old paint.

Yeah, I'd agree with Beobob. It would be a nickle and dime fix at best but that car is really not worth doing much else with......