Clear coat failure

[BluBrett]

It`s hitting my Legend hard lately. Here`s a recent pic of the roof:



http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx25/blubrett/8c000206.jpg



Here`s the affected car:



http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx25/blubrett/99bd1769.jpg



Anyway, as you can see it is well taken care of and the sides of the car still outshine/outgloss most new cars. The horizontal surfaces... Not so much. Has anyone ever repainted just the hood, roof, and trunk? How did it turn out?

[imported_dirtdiggler]

if its just the roof - may i suggest having it vinyl wrapped in black ?

[RaskyR1]

If you plan to repaint you will need to strip the panels and color match will be an issue too.





EDIT: Since it`s just the roof and you have the moldings on each side, color match shouldn`t be a big issue as you probably wouldn`t notice it.

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[Accumulator]

I have panels/portions of panels repainted fairly often, and IIRC all my vehicles have had that done to them (well, haven`t gotten around to the Crown Vic yet). While the matching is always a crap-shoot, things usually turn out OK, or at least "better than if I hadn`t had it done". When they don`t, I have the painter try again until I`m satisfied, or sometimes until he says "that`s as good as I can do".

[Dan]

You`ll be fine if you get a good painter. Side panels are always worse if not blended into the adjacent panel but the top panels are pretty hard to see a difference.

[Barry Theal]

From my understanding, waternourne paint can be panel painted. I know may body shops panel painting vs. blend adjacent panels.

[Ron Ketcham]

From my understanding, waternourne paint can be panel painted. I know may body shops panel painting vs. blend adjacent panels.

You are correct, Barry.

Blending of clears over the past 10 years is not the correct refinish method.

The "blend line" will show up with a year or so, and all that time and money is wasted for the repair.

None of the vehicle manufacturers, I-CAR, etc recommend "blending" of the clear.

The shop doing the work should be aware of that, however many painters believe they are smarter than the paint manufactuers or the vehicle manufacturers.

Their response is like many detailers, " I have been doing this for years and it looks great!"

Yeah, so how does it "look" in a year or two?



Grumpy

[justin30513]

if its just the roof - may i suggest having it vinyl wrapped in black ?



I have some clear failing on my truck due to a repaint before I bought it. I`m gonna wrap mine. A LOT cheaper than paint.

[Scottwax]

I`d just vinyl wrap the roof black.

[tssdetailing]

My heart goes out to you, my S10 is all black and the hood and fender are starting to deteriorate. I spent about 3 hours on just the hood a few weeks ago and it looks tremendously better after sanding and buffing. I do have 3, fist-sized spots that simply will not come back, but the rest of the hood is black again and I`m happy. It`s such an eyesore and frankly it`s horrible for my detailing truck to look like that. I got fed up and had to do something about it.

[Accumulator]

The "blend line" will show up with a year or so, and all that time and money is wasted for the repair....Yeah, so how does it "look" in a year or two?





Noting that yeah, it`s *NOT* recommended, and that most of the time whole-panel (and no blending) is the way to go these days, and that YMMV applies in a huge way....



Well, all that said, I have blends and spot-ins on almost all of my vehicles. Many of these were done long ago (ten years or more in some cases) and I`ve simply *NEVER* had a problem. Not once. Oh, hold it...the pre-delivery spot-in on the Jag went bad, but then that was done by some unkown painter and that paint was so problematic it was discontinued shortly after my car was built.



Just sayin` that *IF* the right painter does the work, and you take the proper care of it, you can do OK with this :nono type of paintwork. If you`re lucky.

[Ron Ketcham]

The issue become quite real when one considers what takes place when the painter "blends" into the existing clear with todays low VOC materials and the importance of having sufficent UV blockers in the top .5 mil of the clear.

Blending does not allow enough film build, IE thickness with enough UV blockers at the edge of the blend.

As well, it usually requires some wetsanding and buffing of the repair area so as to match the original finish that the blend is applied to.

Over time and enough UV sunlight exporsure, a "cloudiness" will start to show at the blend edge.

This is due to the factors I mentioned, not enough film build, not enough UV blockers in the material at that area.

Over time, this defect may well start to expand into the spot repair.

Old, high VOC materials, different chemistry of the materials, blends could often last for years without exhibiting any noticable change in the blend line.

Of course the cavet on this is the grade of materials, surface prep, amount of sunlight hitting the repaired area, etc, etc.

Does a blend always fail? Of course not, however, in the larger percentage, failure will happen.

This is why that PPG, DuPont, etc will not warranty their materials for such failure when a blend is done.

Complete panel refinish to a panel break is required.

Grumpy

[Accumulator]

Ron Ketcham- Yeah, I`m just stirring the pot the way I do when Fermani and I :argue about what products to use/not on fresh repaints ;)

[Ron Ketcham]

I got you!

What we have done here is to present a more logical manner to consider, regarding these common issues, for members to learn from.

At the start of this thread are photos of the affected areas.

That plant was famous in a few of the model years in which it was built for clear failure on the top surfaces.

They were using a Japanense paint supplier and did not put quite enough film build of clear to them.

Normally it was only the dark colored vehicles which would show up with the defect.

We had a 94 Acura in our fleet at AI, the gold base coat.

It started exhibiting the same failure in 98, which meant it was far out of paint warranty.

Grumpy