Help! My Black Paint is Messed Up!

[acelaphillies]

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of a bizarre story, but I will try to make it short. This past winter I bought a black 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche. Last week I was changing out the brakes and rotors with my a buddy of mine at his shop. It turns out that the previous owner did not take good care of his brakes! What should have taken a few hours turned into a few days. After trying what seemed like everything, we wound up having to cut off the rotors! That night it rained and the truck was sitting outside. Well, when I came back the next day all of that discreet rotor dust had turned to rust right on my truck!

Once I got the truck home I washed the rust particles off as best I could. The stuff was pretty stubborn, however I think I got it all. But, left in its place are tons of "ghost marks" as I call them, a bunch of pale bluish spots that are where the rust dust used to be. Also, the once smooth paint has turned very rough!

On a small area, I tried Ultimate Compound and the clay block, which helped some, but there are still hundreds of tiny spots in the paint. To be honest, it looks horrible from what it used to look like. I don't know what to do! Should I just cut my losses and take it to a pro (does anyone have an estimate of what this type of thing could cost me?) or should I move to some more aggressive products? Thanks for any advice!

Here is a mediocre picture of my affected fender:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/92566859@N07/9Ln1f5

The top is where I applied some of the products. I will get better pictures of the damage tomorrow.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Help! My Black Paint is Messed Up!

So if we understand this correctly, when you cut the rotors off you scattered a ton of brake dust and potentially some very fine iron particulate from the cutting process on the rotors, correct? That got all over the truck and was left on the paint, unintentionally of course, when you stopped for the night. It then rained overnight, with all this exposed iron sitting on the paint, and now you're struggling to get everything off - some is still embedded, some of the rust ran and/or spread, etc. Is that pretty much it?

If so, you'll most likely need something a bit more potent than a traditional consumer level clay. Consumer clays are very mild and not designed for the removal of extremely heavy contaminants. We make a couple of more aggressive clays in our Mirror Glaze Pro line, C2000 Mild blue clay, and C2100 Aggressive red clay. We kind of hate to say it, but we have a feeling the aggressive red clay is going to be called for here. But that's only part of the issue you're dealing with at the moment. From the image you posted the paint looks pretty swirled and marred as well. That red clay may actually create a bit more light marring so please don't freak out if that happens!! You'll need to follow up the clay process with the Ultimate Compound to remove the swirls, haze, marring and other below surface defects.

One other thing you might want to try before claying, but not as a substitute to clay, is to spray some of our DUB Wheel Cleaner onto the effected area. It contains the same active ingredient as IronX (but at a much, much lower price and it's available at Walmart and other auto parts stores) so it will react with the iron particles and help to break things down and make removal easier and more thorough. It comes out of the bottle in kind of a neon green color, and turns purple as it reacts with iron. Do this first, let it sit for a while but do not let it dry on the paint, then rinse it off thoroughly. Proceed to claying with the red clay, then use Ultimate Compound to correct the below surface issues, and finish off with a polish and wax.

[acelaphillies]

Re: Help! My Black Paint is Messed Up!

Michael,

I really appreciate your thorough and well thought out response. You are understanding what happened correctly, and I appreciate your recommendations.

I am actually on vacation at the moment as well. This morning I drove downtown to the local auto parts store only to find out that it had been converted into a garage. As we were driving back to the house feeling bummed out, out of the corner of our eye we saw a detailing shop. We pulled in just to see if the owner had any ideas or could give us an estimate. He came back out with a towel and was able to remove the spots almost immediately. He gave me a good price, so I think that is the road that I am going to take for this job.

I will be honest And admit that I am a novice at detailing. While I love to learn, I think that this job may be a little beyond my capabilities at this time, and I may wind up even making it worse. You can be sure though that for some future projects I will be reading up on here for some advice and input. Thanks guys!

[Hoytman]

Re: Help! My Black Paint is Messed Up!

If you knew enough to try UC and you know enough to know about a clay block, then you will be fine if you follow Mr. Stoops's advice and steps (his last paragraph), thoroughly. Study that advise carefully and get it in your mind, then look at this thread http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums...read.php?63263 . You'll be fine.

[Jarhead0754]

We all start somewhere. The go thing is u came here 1st asked questions and educated yourself a little. Now with that there is nothing to be afraid of that you can't do his yourself. As long as you follow as what we inform you with those products and don't try and add something else then you won't damage anything that can't be fixed if need be by a pro. Now with that I think you should try doing it yourself. If you can change brakes then you can fix this. Just don't go at it with a rotary polisher.