is there any hope for this damage? 56K warning

[tonka]

here are the pics of my new car. picked it up yesterday. the pics speak for themselves. there is so much oxidation, i think oxidation should be the new white. should i even bother trying?

[the other pc]

Hi tonka, to MOL.

Sorry to be the one to break the bad news; while some of the car can be much improved with detailing, areas like the roof are showing total clearcoat failure. It's time for new paint.


PC

[tonka]

i think i'm going to clay bar, paint cleaner, polish and wax it just to see how much better it can get. i just tested a little spot in the center of the roof and just with a bit of car soap and paint cleaner, it looks a lot better. it's definitely not new looking, but better. oh well. can't ask for too much of a 10 year old arizona car that wasn't cared for too much. thanks for the warm welcome and for your reply.

[travisdecpn]

The curb rash on the bumper can be improved greatly with some clay followed by some #83 and #80. Most of that damage is paint trasfer. The other side of the bumper can be improved slightly, but not much. The trunk looks to be fixable with some #83 and a cutting pad with a rotary. The roof is gone. IMO, take it to a body shop and have the dents removed and the whole car repainted, you will never be able to remove a lot of that damage completely with any length of time detailing it.

[radkonn]

I had the exact same clear coat failure on my 1991 Accord. Repainting the car was out of the question because I was going to sell it and didn't think I would recoupe the money. There isn't much you can do to it. I tried scratchx and the clearcoat was so thin it would take it off with enough pressure and applications. The white circles in the center is the clear coat that you have left. I just wet sanded the remaining clear coat off with 3000 grit sand paper then applied scratch x and colorx. It didn't look as glossy as the sections that didn't have clearcoat failure, but it wasn't as noticable because there wasn't a point where the clear coat ends and begins.. I blended one section and it looked decent. I can post some pics of the afters if you want, but I don't have the before pictures.

[radkonn]

Here are some pics of my car after I did the work to it. When I say the circles in the center are the areas where you still have clear coat, I mean everything inside of the circle. Also, keep in mind that I did this work only about a month after visiting this board. I've been visiting this board for 3 months now and have learned a great deal more.


Here is a pic of where I blended it using light sanding and scratchx. It doesn't take much pressure with the sand paper. I then applied about two application of scratchx. I should have tried more applications; It would have come out better if I tried even more applications.

[radkonn]

Here are pictures of the areas where I sanded off the entire clear coat and applied scratchx and colorx. The dark areas are shadows from a tree. The paint looks uniform now. I no longer have the contrast between where the clearcoat starts and ends.





Like I said earlier I had the same exact
problems as you do. I should have
tried the least aggressive method first,
but I was a little too impatient. I did all
this work by hand, also. If I had a rotary or even a PC, I'm guessing it
would have turned out better. If you are more passionate about your car, I'm sure you can come out with decent results. Also, if you are hesitant about removing the remaining clear coat, try claying, cleaning, polishing, and waxing a small area where the clear coat is gone already. This will give a good representation of what it will look like if you remove the clear coat and to those steps to the entire roof.

Hope this helps.

[tonka]

thanks for all the info guys! i'll attack it as planned first (least amount of abrasion), and post pics of the after pics. then if it still looks like bird poo, i'm gonna try the #80 and #83... and if that doesn't work, then it's just going to stay like that. thanks again for all the input and information. the pics helped out a lot. i know what to look forward to now. i guess i just got a false sense of hope when i paint cleanered the test spot and got most of the whitening to go away. it's still real dull though.

[tonka]

oh yeah, do you think plastic polish will bring the headlights back? it's affecting night time visibility a good deal. the light looks dull.

[travisdecpn]

Give plastx a try on the headlights, if you can, take them off and clean the inside as well. Good luck with the process, you have your work cut out for you.

[radkonn]

You will notice that the white line never really goes away. It is just so thin at that point that more agressive products just strip more and more of the clear coat. You then have a moving line. I would just strip the remaining clear coat off the front where you sunfroof is. There isn't much left there. It is probably going to be hard to blend the clearcoat on a dark colored car, but I have no dobt you can make it look a lot better. I wanted to try 83 on mine, but unfortunately, I haven't invested in a pc or a rotary yet. My trunk was in worse shape than yours and it came out better than the roof. You can't really notice there is clear coat failure unless you are looking at the paint. If you were just walking by or saw it on the road you wouldn't be able to tell. Basically, it doesn't catch your attention. I'm not saying its not noticable, but atleast people can't see it for 20ft away.

Good luck

Post pics and what you did to it after you finish.

[tonka]

update:

so after washing a tiny 2x1" area on the rear passenger side of the roof, i used clay bar, deep crystal paint cleaner and DC paint polish. the results are disappointing to say the least. although much better, you can still see where there is CC damage. one part is really shiny, then the bubbly clear coat line, then dull color. i'll post pics after the whole roof is done. is there any way to get rid of the distinct line between the shiny clear coated part and the clear coat-less section? will scratchX take some of that out? the clay bar and paint cleaner didn't do too much. i'm still very hesitant on getting a full paint job for the roof, unless you guys know how much i can get it done for (doesn't have to be top quality, just so everything blends nicely). thanks again for all the help!

[radkonn]

DC1 is the least aggressive paint cleaner Meguiars has. Scratchx will work to tone down the contrast on the white line, but I feel like I'm reiterating everything I have already said. I even posted a picture that shows the contrast I achieved using Scratchx. I thought you were going to try DACP (83). You shouldn’t stop just because your least aggressive step didn’t give you good results. You should try scratchx or 83. I think you can achieve better results with scratchx because you can concentrate on certain areas. There isn’t a miracle product that will rejuvenate your paint to like new condition. The best you can hope for is to make it less noticeable. You can try Spray Glow or an equivalent paint shop for an affordable paint job.

[tonka]

sorry, i was a little confused. i'm going to try scratchX next per your suggestion. if that doesn't make it any less noticeable, i'll try 83. if that doesn't work, i'll just eat it for now and look into a repaint later. the color is still uniform and the mica is still very good. there's just a difference in gloss. do you know if a shop will just spray clear on, or would they have to respray the whole thing? and does anyone know how much a roof only repaint will cost? the rest of the car is just oxidized, but no sign of clearcoat failure like on the roof.

[radkonn]

I was going to try and buy some spray touch up paint (clear coat) and try that, but I wasn't sure what the results would be. They probably would want to repaint the whole roof not just spray clear coat on it. It shouldn't be that much to repaint it. It depends on the quality of paint and the shop. Spray Glow offers deals as low as $199 for the entire car.