Bubbling paint on door handles and B pillar

[ShawnOT]

Both door handles on my car have bubbling in the clear coat (or paint?). I guess technically it's not the handle itself but black area surrounding each handle. Today I also noticed for the first time some similar bubbling on the passenger side B pillar. Anyone else ever encounter any issues like this in the same areas? If so, any ideas as to what might be causing it? I've had plans to have the handles refinished at some point, but now that I see the bubbling on the pillar I'm worried there may be a larger issue. Any insight or suggestions is appreciated.

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[ShawnOT]

Can anyone lend any info on what those parts surrounding the door handle are made out of? That would at least be a helpful clue. Are they metal? if so, aluminum, steel, magnesium, etc??? If not metal, is it some kind of plastic?

 

[Old Guy]

That part of the rear sash is an aluminum alloy of some sort. It might be something like ZAMAK. I expect that the actual handle is fabricated from the same material as that part of the sash which makes it odd that you are getting failure on the sash; but, not on the handle since they both get exposed to the same 'stuff'. I have had aluminum alloy parts that have suffered from paint failure and the paint usually comes off in flakes after moisture reaches the base metal leading to the growth of an aluminum oxide which then leads to detachment of the paint from the metal. Your sash almost looks like it was poorly repainted and that there was some chemical incompatibility between the primer / base / clear coat.

I replaced both my rear sashes last year because the boots were torn because of incorrect adjustment of the glass. I still have the original 22 year old sashes and the actual paint is in very good condition.

The body section of the factory service lists the external 'non metal' body parts identifying what they are made of (ABS, etc. ). The service manual does not identify the B pillar cover as a non metal part and giving mine the 'tap with a knuckle' test leads me to think that it is aluminum alloy, probably the same as the fenders and doors (there are possibly 4 different alloys in the body).

 

[docjohn]

I'm thinking that your parts have been repainted since I have not seen that on any unmolested cars...almost looks like a bad rattle can job...

 

[Hass]

I agree with Doc, it appears to have been resprayed...poorly

 

[ShawnOT]

Thanks guys, I'm starting to think the same. Less that it's some kind of corrosion and more so that it was a hasty and not well executed repaint for some reason. The previous owner told me that in his 14 years of ownership he had absolutely no paintwork done and I have no reason to doubt him, so if it was done, it had to be before that. I think my next move is going to be to take it into a local body shop that has a really good reputation and see if they can correct the paint or at the very least point me in the right direction (not to do it myself, but another shop option if they don't want to or don't feel comfortable doing the work). Im hoping they have a paint meter so we can see if the B pillar reads significantly different than other panels.

I was looking at other posts about refinishing door handles/sashes and maybe I missed it, but is there a paint code for the black listed anywhere on the car or in the service manuals?

 

[Old Guy]

The sashes and I think all the external black trim are NH-547 which I believe is Berlina Black. The sashes are going to have to come off to do a good repaint. Make sure that you have a supply of 04721-SL0-000 on hand when removing the sash. Those are the retainer clips that attach the pull rod for the release handle to the door latch. True wizards claim to have been able to release the pull rod from the clip (required to remove the sash) without breaking the clip or losing the retaining washer. I wasn't - read all the gory details here

Warning - latch pull rod retainer clips (nsxprime.com)

Kaz seems to agree that you should have a 'supply' of 04721 on hand if you are going to carry out this activity. Last year neither Acura Canada or Acura US had them in inventory so I had to order from Amayama. Check to see if they are available locally and if not, get your order into Amayama since there is a high probability that you or the body shop will need them.

The sashes are not cheap. $537 $Cdn each plus shipping from Amayama (part 9 & 20 in the following diagram).

Door glass / door adjuster for Honda NSX 1 generation 09.1990 - 11.2001 - Honda Car and Auto Spare Parts - Genuine Online Car Parts Catalogue - Amayama

However, depending on what your body shop charges for the repair work if you have them do the R&R and disassembly for paint it is not going to be cheap. There is quite a bit of door disassembly required to get the sashes in and out. If you are up for the labor yourself, it might be cheaper to purchase a new sash and do the R&R yourself (or R&R yourself and take the sashes in for repaint). If the rubber boots on your original sashes are torn at the top this gives you a nice new set of boots (to boot!).

Whether you install new sashes or get your original sashes refinished you are doing a pretty deep dive into the doors (I recall that the rear window guide has to come out for this fun and games). You should plan for cleaning and greasing the window guides and window regulator since this will all be accessible when the door is apart to R&R the sashes.

As a final observation, as I recall the sashes do not come apart with screws. To get the rubber boot and other parts off for repainting you may be into drilling out some rivets. Others may be able to confirm or refute that. You are not going to be able to get a good repaint if the sash does not come apart. However, have that discussion with your body guy.

 

[ShawnOT]

Thank you again for taking the time to detail out all of this information. Your description of the work involved in doing the repaint correctly is all the more evidence that someone tried to do it the "easy way," and the result clearly shows. I'm a firm believer in that anything worth doing is worth doing right, so I was anticipating having to take everything apart and I do feel confident in my own ability to do it carefully and patiently. I figured it would be something good to tackle slowly during the 4-5 months the car is tucked away for the winter. Thanks for the other tips too on preventative maintenance while things are apart.

In any case, I'll see what the shop quotes me for just the repaint assuming I do the difficult job of removing everything, and if that's more than the cost of buying everything new I guess I'll go in that direction.

 

[ShawnOT]

Not sure if this really adds anything to the conversation, but I thought it was at least worth uploading. I was just looking through previous NSX listings on bringatrailer because they tend to be pretty high quality photo galleries, and I stumbled on this image of a door handle from another 2003. There's definitely some artistic focus going on in the photo so it's a little hard to tell for sure, but the paint on the sash looks to be very similar to what I've got going on.

 

[Old Guy]

Can anyone lend any info on what those parts surrounding the door handle are made out of? That would at least be a helpful clue. Are they metal? if so, aluminum, steel, magnesium, etc??? If not metal, is it some kind of plastic?

Unfortunately, I can now confirm that the B pillar covers are fabricated from aluminum.

B Pillar Cover Paint Wear (nsxprime.com)

 

[drew]

Black is black, there is no special "black". You can probably rattle can these with good results as the surface area is quite small.

There should be posts on removing the B-pillars. You have to drop the headliner and remove the seat belt bezel without breaking anything...which can be difficult.

Make sure to pack the body with rags to make sure you don't drop any nuts into the body: IMPORTANT! I used vise grips to remove the center stud so it can be removed without disturbing the exterior A-pillar garnish.

 

[ShawnOT]

Thanks for the confirmation Old Guy and sorry to hear about that issue on your car

 

[The King]

So my 03 with 20K miles has similar stuff going on with the door handles and Silverstone B-pillars. The handles are not as "rough" looking as the ones in the pictures in the first post. They appear to have little specks of fine dirt under the paint much like the Silverstone B pillar picture above. At least one of my pillars have the same thing going on as Shawn OT.

I remember seeing a thread years ago that suggested that problem there was a problem with some sort of contamination prior to painting a number of cars in 03. When this thread started I tried to find the old discussion on here, but haven't yet. I even bought a set of used Silverstone B pillars from a Prime member years ago, to have in case mine became too obvious. Seems like the progression of whatever this is has not gotten much worse, so I still have the extras stored away. I check them once in awhile to see if they are getting the same disease, but they aren't at this point. Must be of a different model year! Maybe this would still be under warranty!

 

[ShawnOT]

So my 03 with 20K miles has similar stuff going on with the door handles and Silverstone B-pillars. The handles are not as "rough" looking as the ones in the pictures in the first post. They appear to have little specks of fine dirt under the paint much like the Silverstone B pillar picture above. At least one of my pillars have the same thing going on as Shawn OT.

I remember seeing a thread years ago that suggested that problem there was a problem with some sort of contamination prior to painting a number of cars in 03. When this thread started I tried to find the old discussion on here, but haven't yet. I even bought a set of used Silverstone B pillars from a Prime member years ago, to have in case mine became too obvious. Seems like the progression of whatever this is has not gotten much worse, so I still have the extras stored away. I check them once in awhile to see if they are getting the same disease, but they aren't at this point. Must be of a different model year! Maybe this would still be under warranty!

Thanks for the additional info. Since starting this thread I am constantly keeping my eyes peeled for similar issues on other cars. Not that it necessarily makes me feel any better to see the same issues on other cars, but it does make me believe that there was some sort of paint issue at the factory rather than an issue with only my car. Also I should note that the pictures I took of my door handles look much worse than how they appear in person; the paint bubbling/roughness is mostly unnoticeable from a few feet away. So far I have seen the same issue to some varying degree on the handles on two other cars besides mine, both 2003s (one of which was 20 VIN numbers further down the line than mine) which seemed interesting to me to say the very least. I'd love if we could somehow dig up that old thread you referred to. As far as the B pillar, I saw a 98 NSX that had the same paint issue as mine, but this car was blue and it was far more obvious in that darker shade than on mine.

 

[The King]

My pillar spots started first around the edge where the pillar meets the rear glass, and then slowly progressed onto a small area on the face of the pillar. My car is #130.

 

[ShawnOT]

Another example of bubbling/rough paint on door handles that I just spotted on a 2002 car. From what I can tell from the photo this one looks almost identical to what I have going on with my car. I was convinced at first that my issues were due to a bad repaint job, but now that seems less likely. Maybe it was contamination during original painting that took several years to show up, or maybe it's due to exposure to outside elements? My car spent most of it's time (14 years) in Florida, but was garage kept, so it didn't see much if any rain, direct sun, salt, etc.

I'm stumped on the cause of the problem, and equally stumped on what to do to correct it.

 

[docjohn]

to my eye that is bad overspray....here are my OE 26 yo handles..

 

[e9coupe]

Looks like corrosion to me.

 

[ShawnOT]

Since I first mentioned this issue, I have paid special attention to any 2003 cars that come up on Bring A Trailer and Cars and Bids. I have saved images and VINs on the cars where I can clearly see a similar issue on the door handles as my own and so far I've come up with 8 different cars including my own. In order to avoid confirmation bias, I looked outside of 2003 cars and went through every image gallery for sales of 2002 and 2004 cars and did not find any examples of bubbling paint on door handles. I can't conclude that it was not an issue in other years, but I also can't find any examples of it.

This is far from scientific research, but what I have found through observation has at least made me feel a little better that the paint issue on my door handles isn't unique to just my car, though it does seem to be 2003 specific, which could be in line with the theory that there may have been some contamination during the painting process of the handles. I also am fairly certain at this point that the issue is not the result of a bad rattle can spray job before my ownership.

 

[neonshaun]

my 92 kinda has this. The door handles are stock, and they/the surrounding trim (with the nsx logo) have become faded. I rubbed the faded part a little with my finger the other day and it was clearcoat that flaked right off... on BOTH sides it's like this.

It's now on my to-do list to pull the door handles off, disassemble, and respray in berlina black.

OPs however look like they were badly sprayed over, rather than being stock/faded.

 

[ShawnOT]

my 92 kinda has this. The door handles are stock, and they/the surrounding trim (with the nsx logo) have become faded. I rubbed the faded part a little with my finger the other day and it was clearcoat that flaked right off... on BOTH sides it's like this.

It's now on my to-do list to pull the door handles off, disassemble, and respray in berlina black.

OPs however look like they were badly sprayed over, rather than being stock/faded.

I've seen what you're referring to in terms of fading, but the issue with mine and the other 2003s I've seen is more of a rough feel to the paint, and it looks like a bunch of tiny little air bubbles and debris trapped in the paint. It's hard to describe unless you actually see/feel it. The person who owned my car before me had it for 14 years and says he never had them sprayed and I have no reasons to doubt him.

 

[DRIFTER]

My B Pillars are faded a bit. But the handles on my 92 are mint. You could always check the doors for paint work with a simple paint meter. Carfax Dealers and Previous Owners can lie but the paint meter don’t.

 

[MotorMouth93]

It really depends on how the car was stored and maintained, despite their fancy multi step process NSX paint just kind of sucks, it tends to be very soft and is not very resistant to fading or corrosion. For the trim you can either have the parts repainted or just replace them with new - if you can still find them.

 

[Honcho]

It really depends on how the car was stored and maintained, despite their fancy multi step process NSX paint just kind of sucks, it tends to be very soft and is not very resistant to fading or corrosion. For the trim you can either have the parts repainted or just replace them with new - if you can still find them.

I had mine repainted. The door handles are a high-touch area, so it only exacerbates the soft paint and degradation.

 

[ShawnOT]

Here's another example of the same bubbling/rough paint issue on the handles and sash. This is on an 02 car (#163) which goes against my theory that this issue is on 03 cars only, however this car has a salvage title and was reportedly in a pretty serious accident so it's unclear if these handles are original to this car.