Paint Flaw, whitish, pic included.

[phenomic]

I have a sunset orange tran am w/ an aftermarket hood. I am the 3rd owner and there is a paint flaw I was wondering if I could repair without repainting the panels.

I am not sure what caused this flaw and what exactly it is but basically there is a discoloured whitish splotch on the hood. Here is a pic i circled the problem. It isn't very noticable but I would like to get rid of it and it was very hard capturing it with a camera. Any ideas on what this is and if it is possible to fix it with any type of buffing or sanding or whatever? I purposely made a huge image so you could see it. The one spot that isn't circled is just a photo artifact.





There is a little bit on the rear quarter panel as well. A few people have noticed this as well.

[phenomic]

Come on guys, is there anyway to fix this or can anyone identify it? Does it need to be repainted or is there anything I can try?

[RedSoxRacer]

It almost looks like someone tried to wetsand those areas and didnt polish out the sanding marks.

Have you tried to do anything to it yet? You might as well start out with some Scratch-X and see what happens.

[TrufflePig]

i'm no pro at this, but. have you tried scratch x.

it looks like faded bird ****.

its whiteish and stuff. but i could be really wrong.

just wash it, clay it, then use scratch x and see how it turns out.

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX
How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX

GOODLUCK!!!

hope that helps ya.

[jchetty]

yea that doesnt look good...esp since you are telling me that the car has an aftermarket hood here is my idea....the car s hood was painted and put on the car, then the shop proceeded to buff the entire car and those spots are the parts that are wearing thin..meaning that the clearcoat is failing and soon the paint.. i see this alot from ppl who had cars buffed by **pros** the reason i think this is because those areas are near edges, as they are less likely in the middle of flat areas..so im gonna vote premature cc/paint failure though i hope i'm wrong..if you do plan to attack this becareful you might not have much paint left..i would also guess you dont see to much on the sides of the car (vertical panels) because a)less sun b)less likely for 2 much pressure to be applied when polishing....if you have someone near you with an etg(electronic thickness gauge--i think) paint meter and if the hood is metal i would have them get readings on it

[TrufflePig]

oh i missed that. aftermarket hood.

problem might be that you're not supposed to wax/buff aftermarket paint for like 60-90 days.

so maybe that's it. the paint wasn't cured?

but it might be what jchetty is speaking of.

[jchetty]

not for the faint of heart this is what im talking bout, it easy to see in these pics, in your pics I cant determine exactly what it is...






and this is the worst, complete paint failure resulting in the primer being exposed



at first i thought the first mark was just an isolated incident or maybe even a prank or chemical like ajax that the person left on the trunk after shopping and it was leaking...after further review of the car, i noticed it started to appear other places and used a radioshack microscope and determined it was paint failure...then taking into account the holograms it wasnt to hard to imagine what happened...inexperienced detailer + harsh products/pads + bad technique + applying pressure =

[Zet]

phenomic, have you tried to do anything to the areas yet? And did it have any effect?

Maybe you could take af close-up picture of just one of the areas.

The area most visible in your picture looks like it's pitted, with tiny white spots.

Btw, that's a mean looking hood!

[Chex]

well...the defect doesn't really look clear, but since you say it's like a white spot, you have a lot of possibilities.

before anything, check if the white spot looks very dull. if it looks like that and all the other surrounding areas are normal, it might be a clearcoat failure in the spot. if that's the case, no procedure will repair the area.

if you see that the defect feels above the surface, start first with a clay bar. it might be some resin or something like that. if that doesn't work, try a paint safe solvent like meguiars body solvent. if that doesn't solve the problem, try DC1 paint cleaner, or scratchX. if you have access to a PC, go with that if the defect is hard to remove by hand.

if it's a stubborn defect, try using M83 dual action cleaner polish with a rotary buffer and a foam polishing pad. just be sure to know how to operate a machine like this. if it still stays there here are your other options, from least aggressive to way aggressive:


A) rotary+M83DACP+foam cutting pad.

B) rotary+M84(compound power cleaner)+foam cutting pad

C) rotary+M85(diamond cut compound)+ foam cutting pad

D) rotary+M84(compound power cleaner)+wool pad

E) rotary+M85(diamond cut compound)+ wool pad

if that doesn't solve the problem, then use sanding paper, and be sure you know how to use it. if your hood has never been repainted, sand it with a 2500 grit paper and then proceed to step B or C from the rotary. after that, do step A, BUT WITH THE DIFFERENCE of using a foam polishing pad.

then wax.


and if sanding doesn't solve it...then it has no other way to be repaired unless you repaint the hood.

good luck and hope this helps

[phenomic]

Well scratch X didn't really do anything for me. Should i wetsand it and buff it then?

I do know how to do this btw, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

[rascal]

You know, that looks like small "bumps" in the clear coat that somebody tried to sand smooth. If you look closely near the "spots" you can see the small area of paint is untouched...like its a piece of dust/trash in the clear. I would try wetsanding one of the spots and then buff it back out.