Call for Back

I striped 2 McDonald's Rest. with "Gorilla" High Performance 100% acrylic traffic paint (paint goes on beautiful and leaves a nice glossy finish that owners really lilke), one June 06 and the other Sept. 06. The paint has come up and they want a free re-stripe. The General Contractor called me and I said OK! Reason: I don't want to lose this account. There are about 36 Mc's in my area that this guy does the remodeling and hires me to do the striping. I did pressure wash the night before I striped these two places and this could have been the cause for the paint to chip badly. On the other hand, I'm often asked by G.Cs to pressure wash the night before striping, and I've never had this problem happen before. Also, the Mc's owner has his own machine and uses an employee to pressure wash the parking lot fairly often. What the best thing to do here? 1. Suck it up and take the loss. Just re-do it with a smile and tell the owner to be careful with the paint when pressure washing. 2. Call for Back-up from my supplier and see if he can help with a couple of 5's since I buy lot's of this paint and other supplies from him and re-do it gladly. 3. Tell the G.C. that I can't re-stripe for nothing? 4. Your suggestion! BTW: I chose #2 and my supplier said it's not my fault or the paints so he can't help with 2 free 5's and that prolly the pressure washing was the culprit. He informed me that he will send 2 Graco 319 tips free with my next order to ease my pain. I told him to go fly a kite and that I would never buy from him again! He never called back and has prolly decides that the company he works for does'nt need me as a customer. Surestripe

Well since plan #2 didn't really work. Go to plan one. But, I believe you already answered your own question.... ("The paint has come up and they want a free re-stripe. The General Contractor called me and I said OK! Reason: I don't want to lose this account. There are about 36 Mc's in my area that this guy does the remodeling and hires me to do the striping.") So, you suck it up and do it. It's good business. Think of the possibliity of the lost business. It's called "doing the right thing". Whitey---->

I've had a similar problem with this paint lately. While it looks great going down, resists dirt/rubber marks and holds it's color ten times better than CR, it doesn't tend to bond to the previous paint as well as say... new concrete. I don't know if you've noticed. If you spray CR over the acrylic it will "crackle". I thought it was an issue with maybe the acrylic not being dry, but it will do this after months. Obviously something in the two paints isn't compatible . I really noticed it on a lot we wash bi-weekly. We run a surface cleaner with 3500psi @ 210degrees and the stuff was coming up like crazy. What I've been doing, is removing the old paint with a scarifier and starting over on fresh concrete. While costly, it has helped the situation. The key here is the added durability of the acrylic paint should allow the property owners to cut back on restripes. You have to sell the owner on the higher priced prep and paint, with the promise of reduced future maintenance costs. Hard to do when you're not sure if the product will produce the desired results. I've probably used this product on close to a hundred different lots and had great results on probably 85-90% of them. The newer the lot the better. I'd have to say, the problem became a little more prevalent when they switched it to lead-free. This is just my experience with the paint. I hope it helps you out. You didn't say if this was a restripe. I'm curious if the paint coming off is yours, or the old paint underneath. Hard to offer a solution without knowing. Good luck

Concrete can be tricky at times. It could have still had water in it from the washing, it could be the paint or it could just be one of those days. If it's a restripe, the old paint could be letting go. If it's new concrete it could still be too green or have curing agent still on it.

We had a similar situation that I determined was not our fault and the company agreed. There were some old crooked lines, and since we painted straight lines, you could see some old paint on the edges. It was obvious that the old paint was not sticking properly to the old sealcoat. You could tell because where our paint was coming up, it was down to the sealcoat and not just coming off of the old paint. The clincher was the old crooked lines. It was pealing up in areas that our paint never touched. It was cool because I felt like the CSI of parking lot striping. Do a little examination and you may be able to determine what the cause was. I would go ahead and repaint it because you said you would, but if you find that is wasn't your fault, let them know in case it happens again.

Thanks for taking time out to send me your replies! Excellant advice that will be taken to heart! I really appreciate it! BTW: It was a re-stripe (sorry that I forgot to mention this) with someone else's paint "down under" that I painted over. I will re-stripe both McDonald's, without question to keep my customer satisfied, but the point of the matter is that I still feel that the supplier should have some type of contingency plan that can help a striper out in a pinch. I think it's part of doing business with them and asking for help, once in a great while, is fair. But, maybe I'm not seeing things right since I only have about 75k invested in this business and maybe I'm just too emotional about it. Nevertheless, his decision, to only send me 2 free tips, as "the best he could do" is hurting him. I have just purchased a new striper from a competitor. He could have wanted nothing more from me than for me to purchase a new Graco 3000 (dedicated to red) from him. BTW: Not only have I bought plenty of paint from this guy the past 5 years @ $100 per 5's, to justify a couple of free, or at least a couple of discounted 5's, but I also bought a Line Laser 3900 with Line Driver ($8,000.00 + bucks) from him and plenty of signs and cones for the business. Of course, he is only an employee of the company (General Operating Manager) doing his best. I did send the owner of the company (his boss) a letter describing my complaint, and I will see what happens. Fellas and gals, the parking lot business is tuff and we sometimes have to give some before we take some! Surestripe

dbarnettt wrote on Mar 6, 2007:Go to #3

I've had a similar problem with this paint lately. While it looks great going down, resists dirt/rubber marks and holds it's color ten times better than CR, it doesn't tend to bond to the previous paint as well as say... new concrete. I don't know if you've noticed. If you spray CR over the acrylic it will "crackle". I thought it was an issue with maybe the acrylic not being dry, but it will do this after months. Obviously something in the two paints isn't compatible . I really noticed it on a lot we wash bi-weekly. We run a surface cleaner with 3500psi @ 210degrees and the stuff was coming up like crazy. What I've been doing, is removing the old paint with a scarifier and starting over on fresh concrete. While costly, it has helped the situation. The key here is the added durability of the acrylic paint should allow the property owners to cut back on restripes. You have to sell the owner on the higher priced prep and paint, with the promise of reduced future maintenance costs. Hard to do when you're not sure if the product will produce the desired results. I've probably used this product on close to a hundred different lots and had great results on probably 85-90% of them. The newer the lot the better. I'd have to say, the problem became a little more prevalent when they switched it to lead-free. This is just my experience with the paint. I hope it helps you out. You didn't say if this was a restripe. I'm curious if the paint coming off is yours, or the old paint underneath. Hard to offer a solution without knowing. Good luck

Sometimes you have to just re-do a job. Its your company name on the line. I have found that the worst thing you can have is a unhappy customer. Its like bacteria, it spreads. Having a good reputation is very important, I have learned that the hard way. Just smile and say "sure we will accommodate you".......Then on to the next job. Look at it like this: If you had someone paint your car after an accident, and it peeled off, would you want to pay to have it repainted. If you repainting more than just a few jobs from peeling, then you have a whole other issue. But if a few warranty issues come up, well, thats the price of doin business. My 2.5 cents. Jon

I wouldn't be so quick to blame the paint, and therefore, the supplier. They have no control over how a contractor uses their paint. Yes it could be bad paint, but more than likely it was painted on a surface that was either already chipping (the old paint), wet (your fault) or dirty (your fault for not cleaning it first, or telling the customer it had to be cleaned first). Like I said before if you look at and you can determine that it's the old paint coming up, tell the customer so you can come up with a solution. Otherwise, you might have more problems at other stores real soon.