Fresh Paint Care?

[zhero]

Okay guys. I've been searching, but no definite answer.

I've had my car (01 Prelude) painted. Nighthawk Black Pear (stupid move to do in the winter). Now I know the job it takes to keep black looking fresh, but I did not expect to get 2ft of snow dumped on me.

Currently the car is still sitting at the body shop garage. I refuse to take it home with the way the roads are and the salt. Being that I live in the city (philly) I have no garage.

SO to my question. How will the paint hold up with the way the weather is now and what can and can't I use to maintain it. I've read that I couldn't use a wax for at least 30days or so.

I wanna keep the perfect paint for as long as I can.


Whatever advice you have to is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Murr1525]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

#80 has a fresh paint safe polymer. Its not a wax, but better than nothing. It will wear off more quickly of course, but you could apply it a couple times.

[TOGWT]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

New Paint Care - http://bit.ly/8lFByt

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

New Paint Care - http://bit.ly/8lFByt

In the thread you link to, (to another forum), you recommend not to use abrasives on fresh paint but at body shops they use compounds and polishes on fresh paint all the time?

If it's okay for a body shop to do it what's wrong with the owner doing it?

I'm working on a car next week that has a brand new paint job, the body shop did their best and left swirls now the owner wants the swirls removed, in order to do this I'll have to use a compound and polish and I'd much rather prefer to do it sooner than later because the paint is softer yet you recommend the opposite?

But I would suggest waiting for approximately ten to fifteen days before any abrasive product application, which should be more than sufficient time to enable paint off gassing and aerobic curing

Can you clarify TOGWT?

Should I wait till the paint reaches full hardness and then remove the swirls the body shop put in?


Then you go on to say to use a safe for fresh paint sealant to seal the paint, yet there's not a single paint manufacture that recommends sealing the paint before a minimum of 30 days? Does this mean you know more about the chemistry of paints than the paint manufacture?

Fresh paint safe glaze’ - while a paint is cross linking, using solvent- based waxes or sealants is not ideal since the solvents penetrate the paint and soften it and will interfere with the outgas / cross linking process. The common ingredients in a’ fresh paint safe’ glaze are: water, glycerine (to produce a high shine) amino-functional mineral oils and mild abrasive Kaolin (China clay) to burnish the surface and produce a gloss, they exclude silicone and wax, some polymers are also formulated as ‘fresh paint safe’ for the same reasons

The application of a specific ‘fresh paint safe’ or polymer type product, Zanio Z Polishes (exclude the use of either Z1 or ZFX™) Optimum Car Wax is water-based and is safe on fresh paint, or use Presta Fast Wax. Allow an ‘initial gas off’ (evaporate) /cure aerobic process of 7 days before application

These products are completely safe for any fresh paint system as they allow the solvents in a water-based paint to outgas / aerobic cure process and provide some protection for any type of paint surface. After thirty days (30) the paint surface can be protected with a regular polymer sealant and/or Carnauba wax.

The average paint cure time is 30 days; but the body-shop / paint manufactures know their products; seek their advice so as not to void any warranty. Paint manufacturer have specific technical guidelines on how to use their products to affect a warranted spot/panel/ repairs or a full repaint. This preserves both the paint manufactures and factory warranty (if offered)

How do you know if a product is solvent-based?

You recommend Zaino as a safe for fresh paint sealant? (On a Meguiar's forum no less) If the product is sealing the surface isn't that hindering the outgassing process?
Looking forward to some really good technical answers to this one.


And then the link you share on the MOL forum recommends all kinds of products but no Meguiar's? Why not just copy and paste your entire post from dtmpower.net over here instead of the Tiny URl link? Would it have been poor netiquette?

p.s.
You mispelled Zaino

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

I have no garage.

If you have no garage then as soon as your storage time at the body shop runs out, if you have to park your car outside then paint usually doesn't get better and better when exposed to outdoor environments 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Find a way to wash it carefully and stockpile lots of high quality microfiber polishing cloths. Remember everything that "touches" the paint needs to be high quality, that includes your wash mitt, your microfibers, your car soap, etc.

SO to my question. How will the paint hold up with the way the weather is now and what can and can't I use to maintain it. I've read that I couldn't use a wax for at least 30days or so.

Not a single pant manufacture recommends sealing paint before 30 days minimum has passed as the paint is still out-gassing. Jon aka TOGWT recommended you to seal the paint with Zaino which is a very long lasting paint sealant but I don't understand how his preference to Zaino makes it less of a sealant than other sealants on the market whether they are solvent based or not. The fact is if a product leaves itself behind on the surface, as in it coats over the surface and then bonds to the surface, then it's SEALING the surface.

Meguiar's, one of the MAJOR suppliers of fresh-paint safe product to the refinishing industry, makes a number of fresh paint safe polishes but they are all water soluble. M80 as someone else recommended contains a slight amount of a fresh paint safe polymer but not enough to think that you just waxed your car by using this product. It's also a cleaner/polish which means it contains diminishing abrasives and cleans or abrades the paint as you work it over the paint and unless you need a cleaner/polish it's not really the perfect product for adding protection.

Here's the skinny,
Modern Clear coats are tough to start with since you don't have a garage, unless you have plans for some kind of shelter then pick up the car and then decide if you want to wax the fresh paint or not. I can't remember anyone ever showing negative results from waxing paint too soon and I've been in this industry for over 20 years. I'm not saying it's safe, I'm just saying I've never in person seen paint that has failed because it was waxed or sealed too soon.

The other option is to do nothing but wash the car and try to keep it clean for the next 30 days and then after that, pick a quality wax or paint sealant and start maintaining your new paint job.

Remember, modern clear coat pants are pretty tough, the worst thing you usually have to worry about is bird droppings and water spots. No wax that I've ever seen will STOP the corrosive action of a bird dropping, the most you can hope for is it will slow it down.

[TOGWT]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

In the thread you link to, (to another forum), ;you recommend not to use abrasives on fresh paint but at body shops they use compounds and polishes on fresh paint all the time?
Q: If it's okay for a body shop to do it what's wrong with the owner doing it?
A: Dependent upon the ‘owners’ experience, not all readers are experienced paint renovation detailers, so it’s a ‘fail safe option’.

Q: I'm working on a car next week that has a brand new paint job, the body shop did their best and left swirls now the owner wants the swirls removed, in order to do this I'll have to use a compound and polish and I'd much rather prefer to do it sooner than later because the paint is softer yet you recommend the opposite?
A: See answer above. You have sufficient experience in paint renovation to make that call, many readers do not

---Quote (Originally by TOGWT)---
But I would suggest waiting for approximately ten to fifteen days before any abrasive product application, which should be more than sufficient time to enable paint off gassing and aerobic curing
---End Quote---
Q: Can you clarify TOGWT?
A: As sated new paint is soft and unless it’s absolutely necessary I would advise ‘most’ detailer’s avoiding the use of abrasives

Should I wait till the paint reaches full hardness and then remove the swirls the body shop put in?
Then you go on to say to use a safe for fresh paint sealant to seal the paint, yet there's not a single paint manufacture that recommends sealing the paint before a minimum of 30 days? Does this mean you know more about the chemistry of paints than the paint manufacture?

A: Not at all, the last line of this post [The average paint cure time is 30 days; but the body-shop / paint manufactures know their products; seek their advice so as not to void any warranty. Paint manufacturer have specific technical guidelines on how to use their products to affect a warranted spot/panel/ repairs or a full repaint. This preserves both the paint manufactures and factory warranty (if offered)

[Yes. M80 Speed Glaze contains a protective paintable polymer and is completely safe for use on fresh paint.] Mike Phillips MOL may 9th, 2004

---Quote (Originally by TOGWT)---
*Fresh paint safe glaze’ -* while a paint is cross linking, using solvent- based waxes or sealants is not ideal since the solvents penetrate the paint and soften it and will interfere with the outgas / cross linking process. The common ingredients in a’ fresh paint safe’ glaze are: water, glycerine (to produce a high shine) amino-functional mineral oils and mild abrasive Kaolin (China clay) to burnish the surface and produce a gloss, they exclude silicone and wax, some polymers are also formulated as ‘fresh paint safe’ for the same reasons
The application of a specific ‘fresh paint safe’ or polymer type product, Zanio Z Polishes (exclude the use of either Z1 or ZFX™) Optimum Car Wax is water-based and is safe on fresh paint, or use Presta Fast Wax. Allow an ‘initial gas off’ (evaporate) /cure aerobic process of 7 days before application
These products are completely safe for any fresh paint system as they allow the solvents in a water-based paint to outgas / aerobic cure process and provide some protection for any type of paint surface. After thirty days (30) the paint surface can be protected with a regular polymer sealant and/or Carnauba wax.
*The average paint cure time is 30 days; but the body-shop / paint manufactures know their products; seek their advice so as not to void any warranty.* Paint manufacturer have specific technical guidelines on how to use their products to affect a warranted spot/panel/ repairs or a full repaint. This preserves both the paint manufactures and factory warranty (if offered)
---End Quote---
Q: How do you know if a product is solvent-based?
A: Read its MSDS, its container or ask the vendor

Q: You recommend Zaino as a safe for fresh paint sealant? (On a Meguiar's forum no less)
And then the link you share on the MOL forum recommends all kinds of products but no Meguiar's? Why not just copy and paste your entire post from dtmpower.net over here instead of the Tiny URl link? Would it have been poor netiquette?
A: There are other detailing products beside Meguiar’s (as I’m sure you are now well aware of) I didn’t know there was a ‘netiquette’ poor or not. That I choose to provide a link was my choice.

Q: If the product is sealing the surface isn't that hindering the outgas process?
A: The point of a ‘paint safe’ product is that it doesn’t seal the paint and hinder the outgas process but provides some degree of paint protection.

Looking forward to some really good technical answers...
:

p.s.
You misspelled Zaino
:

It won't be the first or last time I'll make a spelling error
***************

[zhero]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

Wow you guys are Aces!!

I didn't even read an entire post just the first sentence of each post and already learned so much than I ever knew, haha.

I'll go through this now. You guys are awesome. Thanks a lot. I'll be sure to keep you posted.



P.S I do have the Factory car cover with mirror pockets. So it fits snug on the car and wont rub. It's lined with microfiber. I'm banking on that for a little while.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

Honestly, you may want to stay away from the car cover for a while - double check with your painter first, but quite often they will recommend against using one during the same time period specified for full out gassing of the paint.

Body shops are also notorious for very fast buff jobs following a respray, and this often leads to hologramming of some degree - sometimes pretty severe. We've seen plenty of cases of this here on MOL and elsewhere. Those same body shops will generally apply a generous helping of a glaze or pure polish to not only boost gloss but to conceal those buffer trails. If you follow their advice about washing the car after a respray, it will be several months before you wash away all that glaze and the holograms appear. Since most people don't really understand what these are in the first place, they either don't notice them or don't care. Yes, it's hard to believe, but it's true - just look at all the horribly swirled & hologrammed paint jobs you see on the road every day. Ignorance or apathy are the only explanations for them.

Anyway, if you can keep the car out of the salt and muck for a while that's not a bad idea. Feel free to apply something like M07 Show Car Glaze or M80 Speed Glaze to help with the gloss during the out gassing process. If you do have the opportunity to evaluate the finish in direct sunlight and find that swirls and/or holograms are present and you wish to remove them, you should be able to with a D/A like our G110v2 (or earlier models) and some M80 Speed Glaze. Both are perfectly safe to use on fresh paint. As has been noted, odds are the body shop already put a rotary buffer to the paint, so for you to take a far less aggressive approach to follow up is perfectly fine. The body shop isn't going to follow their own rotary buffing with a D/A, or even a proper, slow final finishing polish with a rotary, simply due to the time involved. They are in business to get cars painted and out the door, and time is money to them. This is true of even the highest end, most meticulous, highly regarded shops. They just charge a premium for the extra time they put in, and the higher skill level of their people. That's not good, bad or otherwise, it simply is. Remember too that these are body shops, not detail shops - different philosophies, different goals, different skill sets.

Of course our recommendation that you follow with a D/A buffer, if needed, assumes you understand proper use of the tool and the associated liquids and pads involved. While the D/A is incredibly safe and easy to use, you may not want to self-teach on a fresh respray. But if you follow the guidelines long ago set forth on this forum, and stick with a mild product like M80 Speed Glaze, or even M205 Ultra Finishing Polish, you should be able to safely and effectively remove any defects inflicted by the body shop during their rotary process.

Post up some pictures of the car if you can, preferably to show off any issues you may have with it. Well, preferably to show that you don't need to do anything to it, but we sort of doubt that's really the case. We're here to assist you in any way we can, to make product recommendations and give pointers on proper use of the D/A as well as the pads & liquids. Meguiar's has been doing this for a very, very long time (since 1901) - much longer on the body shop and OEM side of the business than we have the consumer side. Heck, odds are pretty good that your body shop even used Meguiar's products to buff out the paint! If they can use them right now then you can too.

[zhero]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

So sadly I had to get the car out yesterday. The drive on Blvd didn't sit right in my head the entire time. with cars splashing and the gray snow.

I have a feelings I'm going to be way too conscience about my paint now.

Anyway here the only picture I took this morning. I'll have more for you guys later on. Sory for the angle.

[Murr1525]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

You'll live.

[Larry A]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

Insurance companys only pay $45.00 per hour labor rate in the area were I live. I worked part time at one time at a high line restoration shop that charged $100.00 per hour labor rate . At that shop all paint work came out like a mirror, no swirls at all. It was very expensive to get work done there. They even done a few Pebble Beach cars. They were always getting awards for there paint work.It took 16 hours for 2 guys to sand and buff a car out.

[starsky]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

Oh man... i really understand your situation.. that really *****...

I had my car repainted too not that long ago; Ii had the luck of a short truce from bad weather... After waiting some weeks after the new paint i put several layers of wax on it and then many layers of paint sealant.. I wonder if that really helps protecting it....

Conclusion: Now it´s snowing almost every day; i never get to see the paint!

[pakalolohonda]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

As has been noted, odds are the body shop already put a rotary buffer to the paint, so for you to take a far less aggressive approach to follow up is perfectly fine. The body shop isn't going to follow their own rotary buffing with a D/A, or even a proper, slow final finishing polish with a rotary, simply due to the time involved. They are in business to get cars painted and out the door, and time is money to them. This is true of even the highest end, most meticulous, highly regarded shops. They just charge a premium for the extra time they put in, and the higher skill level of their people. That's not good, bad or otherwise, it simply is. Remember too that these are body shops, not detail shops - different philosophies, different goals, different skill sets.

Wow! Is it ok around here to bring a post back from the dead?



I'm new here and I'm surfing some stickies, using the search function .. kind of kickin the tires ..
Love this place already! Been a Meguiar's fan for years.

I've never had a $2500 paint job put on a car before, but I got a deal on a nice 92 Accord 5 speed wagon (cobalt blue)





They "color-buffed" the paint afterward, and living in Vegas, we hardly ever get rain.
Nevertheless, it's rained (and it's been windy) atleast 4 or 5 times since the paint.
I got it back the 1rst of Aug. last year..
I've washed it, no soap .. car wash (spray nozzle on low) and used a good mitt and quality MF towels.
I can't seem to get all the water marks out.. soooo, I went and bought some Ultimate Compound and some Ultimate Polish.
I'll follow that up with a good Ultimate wax (which I'll buy tomorrow).

It's a base coat/clear coat, OEM (B-54P Cobalt Blue Pearl) with an UPgrade in clear coat, to which 3 were applied.
I also bought a D/A 6", 3500 rpm polisher .. I've never used one before as I'm used to the orbital ..
It hasn't got a varible setting, so I'll take your advice from another thread Mike and go on a "spree" and buy another one tomorrow ..
LOL! Like you say .. can't ever have too many "tools" ..

I'll make sure to read up on using a D/A, as I've already found the thread that has the arrows and diagrams .. what-a-site!

before ...



after ....



Am I on the right track with UC and UP? Or are there other Meguiar's products that would be sfer/easier/more effective?

Thanks Mike, and I guess I should go on over and introduce myself now lol!

[ffboy]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

For newly repainted cars, use a wax free carwash (deep crystal or gold class) and regular applications of M07 glaze or deep crystal polish. It won't give significant protection, but it wll keep your paint looking good while you're waiting for the time when you can wax your car.

[pakalolohonda]

Re: Fresh Paint Care?

I actually bought an orbital .. not a D/A .. my bad ..
It's been 7 months .. it should be safe to wax by now .. no?