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Paint issues or somebody was there

RedLamp

New member
Hi everyone.

I looked under the bonnet of my 2021 mk8 ehybrid today to do some maintenance and noticed some strange discoloration on right and left fenders bolts (and some strange plastic wrapper around the bonnet cable later).

So now I’m curious is it some defect from factory or previous owner did something here and did not disclose it to me?

In general car is fine and I have no problems with it the whole time that I drive it (almost a year soon, 15000 km), but you never know the whole story of the used car :)

Why do you think? Attaching photos of bolts for right, left fenders and mysterious wrapper))
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SRGTD

Autocross Newbie
Difficult to tell for certain from your pictures, but the ‘strange discolouration’ around the wing / fender bolts looks like it might actually be areas of the grey body colour paint has ‘lifted’ and come away from the metalwork, exposing the light grey primer coat. If so, then IMHO most likely causes could be;
  • the alignment of front wings / fenders has been adjusted at some point. I this issue on a brand new mk6 Golf as the wings / fenders were poorly fitted in the factory, leaving uneven panel gaps between the wings / fenders and the bonnet / hood. Dealer I bought the car from adjusted the gaps by loosening the wing / fender bolts, making the necessary adjustments to the panel alignment and re-tightening the bolts. On my car, the paintwork remained intact though.
  • those areas on your car may have been repainted at some point, and the body shop doing the work prep might have either skimped on the prep work prior to repainting, or the repainting might not have been carried out in a temperature and humidity environment (e.g. a purpose built spray paint booth). If so then the result might be poor paint bonding / adhesion to the body panels.
There are also some white marks that have the appearance of water staining along the edge of the fender panel that bolts the fenders to the car. Again, difficult to tell from a picture but rather than water staining, could it be that the top layer of paint has lifted and flaked off the panel? (if so, another possible indication of repainting and poor prep prior to any repainting work).

Sorry, but I’ve no idea of the reason for the plastic wrapper in your last picture and whether or not it’s something VW fit when the car’s built, or if it was put there by a previous owner. On a previous VW I owned, VW did fit foam filled plastic bags in specific locations in the inner wings to stop engine and road noise transmission into the car’s cabin. Maybe a forum member with a mk8 could check to see if they have a similar plastic wrapper (bag?) in the same location in their car; if so, then it would confirm it’s something that’s part of the car’s original build.
 
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Carlosfandang0

Autocross Newbie
Dunno about the bolts, but the plastic bag with foam inside is normal, I’ll see if I can get a picture of my car later.
 
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