The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

[slowray]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

I have an Oldsmobile Aurora 1999 which had cracking in the clear coat. Wet sanded as much as I could and then buffed using McGuires products, followed by fine polishing and wax. Its been 4 years now and the car shows no signs of re-cracking and the finish is great.

[kentwp]

Hello,

Can someone here please help me identify if my picture shows a clearcoat failure (the whitish stain) on Deep Black paint work with pearl effect?

A few days ago, I discovered a stone chip on my bonnet. Read about using touch up paint and wet sanding ending with polishing and decided to try out the procedure.

After the touch up blob drying for 5-6 hours on a warm day, I used a 2000 grit paper based sandpaper soaked in soapy water for 20 mins and made multiple passes at about an inch around the blob.

After the blob seemed to be even with the rest of the surface, I polished the area using ScratchX, and the ended with Polish. Once I completed it, I realized that at angles with artificial lighting, there seems to be a crater of sorts but looked glossy.

If you look at the picture, and ignore the 3 stripes (I added more touch up paint as I realized the paint was not enough), I noticed the whitish stain that could not be removed with further polishing. Just to add, there seems to be still a clear coat as at angles I could still see that the white stain is still as glossy as as the surrounding paint.

Anyone thinks that it should be headed towards a re-spray?

Sorry, I can't seem to insert a picture from the iPhone app. Will get to a PC and upload.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

We'll wait for the pictures, of course, but it sure sounds as though you may have sanded through the clear coat or very close to doing so. If you just used your fingertips with that sandpaper, even 2000 grit, and worked such a small area then it's actually very easy to do this. Did you sand with just your bare fingers or did you have some sort of backer for the paper, even if just a small block of wood, plastic, etc?

[kentwp]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

We'll wait for the pictures, of course, but it sure sounds as though you may have sanded through the clear coat or very close to doing so. If you just used your fingertips with that sandpaper, even 2000 grit, and worked such a small area then it's actually very easy to do this. Did you sand with just your bare fingers or did you have some sort of backer for the paper, even if just a small block of wood, plastic, etc?

Hi Michael,

You were right about me using my fingertips. I checked again this morning and confirmed that the whitish spot is indeed still glossy.

Here is a picture of it.

[TheDetailBoss]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

Great post Mike! Living in Arizona where the sun is relentless, I see this all day long. We receive calls and go out to give estimates and simply tell our clients there is nothing we can do for them once its to that stage of deterioration. Luckily one of our clients brought to us his Mercedes Benz that was showing signs of oxidation and we really weren't sure what we could do with it. So we gave it a go. The clearcoat wasn't flaking and was in-tact to the touch, which was definitely a good sign. We did a two step correction and while the oxidation didn't come out 100% (we think it almost would have had he wanted a more aggressive package) it looks night and day. here's a video of it below. Great post! very interesting and informative on the different stages of paint/clearcoat failure. I just thought I'd share this as an example that it CAN be corrected before its too late!

Half/Half Comparison on the hood:

[zhucehao]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

Add me to the group that never knew about high engine temps adding to hood clear coat failure. Very interesting.

[PKR]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

While I'm not entirely new to detailing, I don't own a machine and I've never worked on a car more than 5-10 years old. Now I'm faced with some sort of problem on the paint of a 1990 BMW 325i. Color is Sterling Silver, which I assume has a clear coat. The attached photo shows a small area of what look like very fine scratches; most of the car loos about the same. The scratches pass the fingernail test but any efforts I've made to hand polish them yields no joy whatsoever. I've asked others with '80s-era BMWs and their best guess is that the clear float is beginning to go. What say you .... ?

[Murr1525]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

Hmm.. doesnt usually fail in long straight lines.

But it does look abused and maybe 'dry'... which certainly will increase the chance of failing.

[PKR]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

"Abused"? Definitely, though the color itself is surprisingly good.
Just for fun, if we were to assume that it was actually NOT clear coat failure, then what corrections would be worth trying?

[Murr1525]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

What efforts did you make so far? May be worth its own thread if you want to get into more detail on the car.

[Mark5280]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

I love this thread. It's so sad that car manufacturers used such crappy products and for the most part will not stand behind their product. I see so many cars on the road with this problem and some of them seem to be only a few years old.

I recently had the same issue with my older Eagle Summit where the clear coat had failed pretty badly on the roof and hood. It looked horrible with the clear coat layer raised up and white splotches all over the top of my car. The car still runs great and the AWD is super in the snow so I don't want to junk it just because of a bad paint job. I suspect that taking the car thru an automatic car wash contributed to this problem. I only started the automatic car washes last year, and the paint was great before that. I'm not sure if that contributed to the failure since the sun is pretty hot here in Denver, but the car has always garaged.

A few pictures below of my problem, and go here to see more: http://s217.photobucket.com/user/loc...%20my%20Repair




A few months ago I applied a product that I came across that did a pretty good job of hiding the ugly white splotches where the clear coat failed. It worked great on my older burgundy car and I've also applied it to several black cars as a test. It's been 2 months on my car and the damage is still hidden. It's certainly not a new paint job, but I can't afford that right now so this process was very acceptable to me, inexpensive and quick. I'm amazed at the posts that say "just get a new paint job" to solve this problem, but I can barely pay my health insurance now after the newest hefty increases. Even if I have to apply this product a few times a year, I'm happy to do it to hide those horrible splotches. After applying this product to the hood and roof, those areas were not as glossy as the rest of the car, so I applied two coats of Carnauba wax and that really brought out the shine. It looks pretty good now for a car from 1995.

There are a few YouTube videos of this product being used. Go to Youtube and search for "Eagle Summit Clear Coat" for a longer video that I made. Hope this helps someone.

[uber-shine]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

That looks very good Mark5280. What I might have suggested before applying the clear-coat wipe, (or to anyone who is thinking of attempting this process) is to use the Meg compounds to polish and exfoliate some of the old existing clear, which will help to brighten the overall panel and blend away the voids that appear where the clear-coat is gone completely. This might eliminate some of the "bald" spots. In the Cutlass project shown below, a thorough 3000 D/A and multi-stage saved it's severely oxidized upper panels (trunk, roof, hood) and saved it's 30 year old paintwork.

[Steve Conn]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

Underhood temps, especially right after shutdown can exceed 180 F. I used a tell-tale remote thermometer to check (and document this) different areas of the engine compartment several years ago. I have several prop rods of about 12 inches to use to prop my hood open (a '96 and '03 Corvette and an '03 Tahoe) when I stop in the summer if the engine has come fully up to temperature. This allows the superheated air to vent out and not create hotspots on the underside of the hood. Expansion and contraction of a steel hood subjected to temp. extremes will obviously break the surface of the paint over time and speed deterioration. It only takes a second to pop the hood open when you stop.

[jjrakwichian]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

Base on my experiences, if the CLEAR COAT is still on the CLOUDY OR HAZY stage, it is still actually can recovery that by sending with 3000 grit sanding disc along with the black foam interface from Meguiars and follow up with M100 and M205. But must be patient and quite gentle during the restoring porcess.

[dricacho]

Re: The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

I need help in determining whether or not this is clear coat damage or oxidation. This is a 2 stage pearl white which makes it even more difficult for me to tell. The rest of the car isn't showing this, only the hood. The roof can also use some protection from this.