Just had a wasted morning, quoted £130+vat to strip and repaint a van bonnet in flat white. Removed it, took off all trim and bonnet catch, when I took it in the price doubled despite me saving them the inconvenience of having a 6 metre van sitting in their oven.

So, considering the bonnet wasn't prepped and sprayed properly in the first place so the paint is peeling, what's the best way to strip the paint myself? Attack it with sandpaper? Paint stripper? I want to preserve the factory applied undercoat if possible.

Unless anyone here works at a sprayshop in the Brighton area and wants to do it?!

i would have thought the 'best' way would be to have the panel either dipped or blasted and then start completely from scratch.
I doubt you'll get the top coat off leaving the undercoat – in fact I'm pretty sure you couldn't.
You could just sand it to within an inch of it's life.

£130 doesn't sound too bad.

if you want to retain as much undercoat etc as possible then I'd use an orbital sander followed by wet and dry on a block.

you'll end up spending £40 on materials if you're not careful and it won't match the finish on the rest of the van…

btw, you didn't buy it off a Polish bloke fairly recently did you? There was an old citilink (I think) yellow one respreayed white on the street near us (Hove) recently and they had huge problems with the top coat not keying to the undercoat.

Thanks for replies. 130+vat was the first quote, when I took it in they wanted 200+vat, even though I told them it would need stripping. Sounds like DIY isn't worth it.

Wasn't a yellow van, this is an Iveco Daily that was London area.

Just asked another place, £225+vat 🙁

Buy one from ebay / a scrappy?

Ebay/Scrappy.