How to remove 'checking' from lacquer

[rphdiego]

I recently bought a 1989 Cadillac Brougham d'Elegance(RWD) with original Sable Black lacquer paint. It has only 58000 original miles and it is in near 'showroom shape' except the hood and trunk show lots of 'checking'. Is there a way to remove these checks with waxes/polishes/clay? I am willing to try anything at this pont. My next step will be a complete repaint of the car to get it back to 'showroom' shape. Please help.

Ryan- Jupiter FL

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Ryan,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

The only way to fix Lacquer Checking is to repaint the panel or the entire car. Lacquer Checking is not a problem on the paint but is a problem throughout the matrix of the paint.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

[Superior Shine]

If your cadi has orig. paint then it isn't lacquer, but the answer is the same - repaint.

Here is my 94 eldorado with 29,000 miles --

[Tim Lingor]

Yep, checking is in the paint and can not be wet sanded out. Only a repaint will help, sorry.

Tim

[Scottwax]

Yep, definitely repaint. If you try and polish it out, you will end up with product inside all those little cracks and the paint will actually look worse.

A quality repaint will probably run $2500+ but with the miles on the car and if it is otherwise top notch condition, the high cost of a good paint job will be worth it in the long run. I wouldn't just get the top half of the car painted, hard to perfectly match older paint that has been exposed to UV rays for the last 16 years. Plus you'd still have the older technology GM paint on the rest of the car.

[Shawn1283]

Re: How to remove 'checking' from lacquer

My white '87 Caprice has this same thing, twice the miles, but garage kept until last November and it started this spring. It had it only on the panel between the rear window and the trunk before this, now the trunk has it as well as the roof panel. Luckily the hood has held up fine. Not sure why this happens, maybe it's just drying out. I know on furniture somehow lacquer can be "reflowed" with heat but that's not possible on a car. Seems to me as others have said, there is no way to correct it because sanding would thin the paint and the crevices probably go down to the primer level. Compounding or anything else wouldn't help either. One of the downfalls of the beauty and depth acrylic lacquer has.