Advice on correcting these paint defects...

[draperd]

The hood on my 2005 VW Passat was neglected in the past. Too much highway driving, too little washing...

From the attached photos can anyone help to guide me on which products/techniques I could use to correct these defects? There is a good mixture of road trash, lovebugs, and airborne boat plant resin on there. I have gone through one session with the new Clay and Ultimate Compound with little progress. Any help (unless its trashed and past that point) is appreciated!

[irf@n]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

Clay is a good start, did you try tar and bug remover spray?

[draperd]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

Clay is a good start, did you try tar and bug remover spray?

I tried a regular consumer line clay before the UC. I haven't used the GC Tar and Bug Remover b/c I thought I was past the point it would help.

Do I try a more aggressive clay?

[yalerd]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

You have to evaluate and really pay attention to the defects, it could be that they have damaged the clear coat and you'll have to take into consideration a more aggressive approach to fully remove it or improve there appearance.

Try some bug remover, and see if it improves.
Test spot using a paint cleaner and to see if you notice improvement

[3Fitty]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

Are you sure those aren't chips in the clear? It looks like a couple of those have some depth to them (can you feel them)?

If so, you're probably not going to have too much luck with clay and compounding.

[02zx9r]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

I did my girlfreind's black explorer and used Ultimate Compound on the hood, while it removed a lot of the scratches and swirls, it made the hood a lot more glossy and clear and while I thought there were some chips, after doing it there are A LOT of chips that look just like those. While you can see from a few feet away, up close they are all over the place. She is trading it in but even if she wasnt not sure what I could do for it.

It would take me a long time to fill them all in, then let it cure for a couple of weeks and try my hand at wet-sanding.

[draperd]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

It looks like there are some chips in the clear coat. Guess this is going to be more of a project than I thought!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

We lost our Popular Tags box during the upgrade but hopefully will have ti back soon... in this list of tags are Rock-Chip and Touch-up tags and they would take you to multiple threads on this topic.

Most people want to apply touch-up paint and make the paint on their car look like it never had a chip and doesn't have any sign of touch-up paint and while this can be done it isn't easy, it isn't fast.

For most people the best thing to do is to get some matching touch-up paint and a fine tipped artist paint brush from a crafts supply store and only apply tiny amounts of touch-up paint, not blobs.

Get it close, get it better and then move on...

Not what people like to hear but most people just don't understand how complicated it can get trying to do perfectionist touch-up work.

[draperd]

Re: Advice on correcting these paint defects...

Get it close, get it better and then move on...

Wise words... Going to order paint pens...