Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

[augustinedesign]

Need help!

DAMAGE TO MY HOOD AFTER WAXING. IS IT HEAT FROM ENGINE?

First I did a full car light Polishing compound to shine up my clear coat (by hand) nothing heavy. That worked amazingly for oxidation.
Then I did a full car wax with Meguiares paste wax (by hand). Then wiped/buffed it all off by hand. Everything looked great!
I did everything in the shade - not a drop of direct sunlight, etc.

The next morning I went outside to admire my wonderful job and saw that my entire hood is covered in tiny hair-like cracks (not swirl marks) these are literal straight cracks in the clear coat that look like tiny white hairs some are three pronged (star-like) pointing in all different random directions - thousands of them, very visible, all happened overnight. What is odd is that the cracks are only on the hood which makes me think this was caused by heat from the engine when I drove the car from the place I waxed it to my home parking spot (only 3 minute drive). These tiny little cracks are deep and nowhere else on the car and they weren't there when I was complete with the waxing.

Can I ask, does this happen to people? There is no other logical explanation I can think of. Its as if the wax bonded to my clear coat and then expanded or contracted from the heat of my engine (only 3 minutes of driving) causing the clear coat to actually become full of tiny stress cracks that are deep. I can feel the depth with my fingernails.

Hmm, the only other thing I can think of is that I did open and slam the hood right after touching up the wax job, before I drove it. Was my wax job so glassy that I shattered it :-) ? What the heck?

Any advice or wisdom you could share would be wonderful.

Thanks so much!
Tim

[The Guz]

Re: Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

How old is the car? This sounds like clear coat fracturing from what you are describing. It is not the cause of the products used on it. It exposed the problem that was already there as the product settled in those fractures. It is essentially a form of clear coat failure. The only fix is a repaint.

Do you have any photos?

[augustinedesign]

Re: Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

Thanks for your response. The car is a 2014 Honda Civic EXL. It's hard to believe the clear coat already had this problem and was completely invisible before and after the waxing - then 12 hours later cracks everywhere. I will upload phots later and ask you if you have any recommendations as an alternative to repainting. Like maybe the cracks can all be filled in with a product?? Thanks again.

[HCAD]

Re: Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

Civics did have a number of years where this "fracturing" of the paint was a problem. I've seen quite a few myself. In many cases my customers told me Honda was settling out with a repaint. But of course that won't last forever, and I'm unsure of the years affected. But as Guz mentioned, once the wax that was left in the cracks dried completely it became noticeable. Hope for the best for you, but....

[Nick Winn]

Re: Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

As unfortunate as this situation sounds, there is really no way for a coat of wax to be the root cause of this. I agree with Guz & HCAD, sounds like detailing the paint may have just exposed something pre-existing. We are happy to continue exploring it with you, but would just need some pictures to continue.

[thedoc46]

Re: Damage to paint after waxing? What happened?

Could the car been in a hail storm maybe even when you were unaware, like at work or during the night and only now because you've just waxed the car, and paying more attention to it, that you're actually noticing it. I've seen hail damage and that's the sort of thing it does. There is no way a wax product could do this. Its chemically impossible.