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**volveaux** · Mar 5, 2007, 08:30 AM

Re: Clear coat failure?

My question now is, "can I machine through the clear coat, down to paint and work with paint?"

I know I need a paint job, but can it be done until the day comes to paint?

**Mike Phillips** · Mar 5, 2007, 08:37 AM

Re: Clear coat failure?

Thanks for starting a new thread. That's the good news!

The bad news is there's really not much you can do to fix the areas that are all white and hazy except to repaint. Claying, cleaning and polishing the areas around the white/hazy areas will act to make the paint shinier and this is a good thing but your car's paint is at the point that it's pretty far gone and working on it will also tend to accelerate the deterioration process in some areas.

If it were mine? I would clean and polish what's left and then wax it and maintain it. The truth is however the only honest fix is to repaint the car. If the value of the car is that it offers dependable transportation but it's not worth it to you to have it painted then the hard truth is you'll have to get used to how it looks.

Another option would be to take it to one of those cheapie body shops and get the under $500.00 paint job so that while you're driving it around it doesn't look like it has a rash.

Volvo's have such a good reputation as being a safe car to drive and also for running forever as long as you do normal mechanical maintenance plus get fairly good gas mileage, so if you plan on driving this for years to come it might be worth it to you to have a paint job thrown on it, even a less costly one.

**volveaux** · Mar 5, 2007, 08:44 AM

Re: Clear coat failure?

Thanks Mike. This is my second Volvo. I restored a 1987 740 last year and now I adopted this 245. I'm turning into a Volvo mechanic. On my 740 the hood and roof (gold color) had the same thing, down to primer. I repainted the hood and roof and got the car looking sharp.

On this Silver car, I was told Volvo uses a 2-part paint system, meaning they paint a base-coat of paint and then do a layer of clear coat on top. This is compared to what I understand a 1-part system is: clear coat mixed with base coat.

My hopes here are that I have good paint underneath layers of clear coat, and if I can remove the nasty clear coat I can work the paint for a while.

I don't think the clear coat is mixed with the paint, but is a protective layer that has deteriorated.

Does that make sense? I want to strip the top layer of bad clear coat and work the paint beneath. Will #83 and #4 be enough to do this job?

Thanks,
Jamie

**Mike Phillips** · Mar 5, 2007, 09:02 AM

Re: Clear coat failure?

In a nutshell,

There are single stage paint systems and basecoat/clearcoat paint systems, there are some variations of this but like we said... in a nutshell...

If you're car has a bc/cc paint system, the color coat, or basecoat under the clear coat will be thin, (enough to cover the primer coat and give the car a uniform appearance), and will not polish to a high gloss.

It is the clear layer that gives the colored layer it's gloss, beauty and protection. My bet is even if you were the best detailer in the world, there's no way you could uniformly remove the entire clear coat layer to expose only the color coat layer (for a uniform look) and even if you could it wouldn't polish out and it won't hold up to exposure to the environment.

Thus the recommendation previously to learn to live with it or repaint.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but honesty is the best policy.

**volveaux** · Mar 5, 2007, 09:05 AM

Re: Clear coat failure?

Understood, and many thanks. This is just something I'd like to try and wanted to make sure I used the right stuff.

Will post whatever happens.

Thanks!
Jamie

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