Paint Help - Fading? Can't tell

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Serj22

Serj22

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Benicia, CA East Bay
I have had my car for over 2 years now, and it's been outside that whole time. It was my understanding when I bought it that the P.O. had it painted two years before that, so this paint job is 4 years old likely. He mentioned it was a paint jail thing, where he paid someone to paint the car, it was there for almost a year till finally he was tired of not having a painted car, and told the guy he'd give him $500 to just finish it presentably and give it back.

So it had some runs and stuff, and the guy shot a metallic on it, but didn't keep it mixed in the gun on a couple spots it looks like. This was all livable. Not a big deal. It's Iridium Bronze Metallic, and the color matches the unpainted door jambs very well.

I keep wax on the car about every 3 months, and wash it weekly, but what I have noticed recently is one morning I washed it and these little scratches showed up. I always use microfiber and then a shammy to dry - but immediately thought I had brushed it with dirt or something and scratched it. But this only appeared on the trunk lid, and over time it seems to have "spread" to the tops of the Rear quarters. It is however not present on the back of the trunk lid where the fratszog emblem is, just above my tail stripe and towards the window.

It appears nowhere else on the car at all, and is just in this area horizontally across the car.

My question is, is this fading paint? Or? I don't believe there's a clear coat, and it just looks really odd. It also only shows up at one specific angle, so it's hard to take a picture of.

Buffing did nothing but make the rest of the paint look awesome, and this still look the same. What can I do about this - or is repainting my only option? Still strange why it's just in this one spot.

20150411_183500_zpsgg6stcod.jpg


If you look directly above the "U" and "P" on my stripe, you see a lighter bronze blotch, it's not a blotch, but a bunch of horizontal "scratches" like this and it is all over the trunk lid. Like I said, hard to take a picture of - sorry. But also, like i mentioned early, everything behind the stripe is clean and does not have this effect at all. I'm stumped... And of course from any other angle than this, it is not visible...
 
Looks to me like sanding scratches in the primer.
The primer is shrinking, thus scratches appearing.
Common for primer being applied to thick to cover up pitting, etc or spot putty used.
 
the change in the metallic could be from poor application, getting the either the base coat or clear coat too wet or if single stage just putting it on to thick. the only time you really have to mix a metallic is when your shooting bass boat style heavy flake/glitter.

i third the opinion of sanding scratches showing through.
 
pntastar69 said:
Isn't that ovekill?
Click to expand...

Maybe, but the car lives outside and gets driven every day. It also gets parked in the dirt and gravel at work, people drive by and kick up rocks and junk. I just like to try and keep it nice.


I had no idea primer could shrink like that, but it does make sense to me. They were filling in some stuff by using a heavy coat, and now over time, under the final coat you can see it.

So the only real option is to strip the trunk, fix the scratching underneath, and repaint. I think I may just prep the whole car at that point.

Ok. Thank you guys, was just wondering if there was some way to repair it as is, but it is clear that there is not. Appreciated.

Also Buckshot, this is why I was thinking maybe he hadn't kept the paint mixed is spots like these:

20150411_114714_zpszrl69xyw.jpg


This is more of a blotch, not scratches. But maybe it's more of the same kind of thing? Primer issue?

Either way, the car looks good, and I'm the only person who notices these blemishes of course, but it's driving me nuts. lol I was just concerned when these scratches appeared one day ya know? It was weird.
 
How long has that blotch been there? That does look like clear coat beginning to fail. In the first pic of the scratches, where was the pic taken? Under florescent lights those sanding scratches are much more noticeable.
C
 
That particular spot in the corner where the roof meets the quarter has been there since I bought it, along with another spot near the driver's window. They don't change. The paint feels all like one surface there. It looks almost like they missed with the gun somehow. I can't really explain it. I am not really sure there is a clear coat on the car.

The other scratches on the trunk appeared in about a week's time instantly. The trunk looked awesome, then all the sudden I washed it and saw it now looked like that.

I don't have any room in my shop to roll it under flourescents, but it only shows up at that angle, and in person looks worse. Like i said hard to take a photo. The paint surface itself is very clean and uniform. There's no peeling or anything like that.

It's harder to tell from other angles, and most the time invisible. I have to catch it in this real perfect light and angle to get it to show up. The smudgy looking stuff at the bottom of the image is literally just a smudge on the lens. It's noticable but a lot harder to pick up.

20150411_182600_zps0ltry4ma.jpg


But this whole area in the photo is covered in it. Then when you go past the stripe towards the bumper, it's gone. But it goes from the stripe, to the window, across the whole top of it.


For a cheap fix, would I be able to wax strip it, peel the vinyl (I have a 2nd one) and use my touch up gun (about 1 pint hopper) with a mixed Bronze Metallic paint and mask off the car, and say spray from the back to the front and use the water drain fins as a spot to stop and blend? Basically just painting the top of the trunk area to the window, and going forward on the fenders to the doors to use the doors as a cut line? Would that work out? I don't have a spot to paint the car, but I can back it in the shop and get the trunk to at least fit and then hose down the floor and go to town.

Would it stick to what's there if prepped and sanded? Or? I've done repaints on cars that were bare metal and filler, but never over paint that's already there.

Would there be a way to get it mixed to the same tone as the rest of the car? I'm sure it's faded a bit but the whole rest of the car looks great minus this spot. It'd be a temporary fix till I strip and paint the whole car, and that's a long time coming.
 
That hazy spot could be a burn through where it's actually been polished through the clear layer, Without knowing how it was prepped , the trunk lid, could be primer piled on top of old lacquer that was checked. Looks good for awhile and shrinks back. Lacquer checking will have a variable criscross pattern, sand scratches are usually longer straight lines or circular DA marks., and usually not the entire surface. I'm not getting a good look at the pics on my tablet, but looks more like it all died back into old cracked paint than sand scratches
 
sireland67 said:
Looks to me like sanding scratches in the primer.
The primer is shrinking, thus scratches appearing.
Common for primer being applied to thick to cover up pitting, etc or spot putty used.
Click to expand...

Ding, Ding, Ding We have a WINNER!

Unfortunately there is no easy fix for that. A repaint of the trunk lid is order along with some blending into the sail panels and quarter panels. Sucks, but it is the only way to truly fix the root of the problem.
 
440abody said:
Ding, Ding, Ding We have a WINNER!

Unfortunately there is no easy fix for that. A repaint of the trunk lid is order along with some blending into the sail panels and quarter panels. Sucks, but it is the only way to truly fix the root of the problem.
Click to expand...

This is what I'm thinking of doing. If I were to prep it and sand off the old paint down to the primer would this happen again over time?
 
Honestly your car still looks good, drive it.
I have seen way to many decent cars tore apart and not make it back to the road.
 
sireland67 said:
Honestly your car still looks good, drive it.
I have seen way to many decent cars tore apart and not make it back to the road.
Click to expand...

I agree that it still looks good. I've been driving it every day, for the last two years. It's my one and only car. The '74 Dart is my Fiancee's and that's her one and only car.

There's no such thing as taking a Dart off the road for a while here.

If I did any kind of painting it'd be a weekend to week long project, and likely still be driving it during, but not while actually painting obviously.
 
Just leave it alone.
Most likely the panels will need stripped to bare metal, you really don't want to drive a car in primer stages because you can contaminate the surface.
You could possibly end up with a bigger problem than you started with.
 
I agree with sireland67. The chance of having the correct color match to a 4 year old paint job is not to good, unless you are really good at it. If there is thick primer on there hiding something, what would you do once it was uncovered? I would drive it and keep it clean and waxed until it was ready for a complete paint job.
C
 
Smart man,

Your car looks good, I always told my wife I was the care taker of old cars.
Fix everything mechanical, if they look good, just drive them and enjoy them.
 
Yeah I would be drivin the wheels off it. It looks good.
 
I don't know how many remember this particular problem, but there is new development. I washed the car the other day and it bubbled... yeah. And then flaked off. Yeah...



So that confirmed my assumption that it was a 2 stage paint, with a clear. I sanded the flakes off around it because I did not want it to spread, with some 2500 gritt, and feathered it down. The base coat got sanded a bit and turned red/pink, which probably could have been avoided if I had not waited for it to peel, then again, how could I have known?

Anyway, I used my small hopper gun and sprayed a clear enamel over the area and feathered it in as best I could, and hopefully that will seal it...



And it might keep it from peeling more.

When I went to work the next day I decided to polish the area off after some 4000 gritt sanding. And it looked... really nice. But just in that one spot, the rest of the car still looked scratched, and the area where the clear peeled looks like ****, but at least it's not peeling, so that will be a premier sticker location when I'm done.

So I had a theory, and figured I might have just really screwed the pooch, but I am putting some faith into my theory. I masked off the stripe, the sides, window, etc, sanded the whole trunk with 4,000, and sure enough the scratches looked worse, I was hoping for that. I was going to be upset if it looked any different.

I'm still thinking I F*D up at this point and should've just put a sticker on that spot and walked away, but NO! I wiped the whole area down with paint thinner.

When it was dry, I hit it with clear, the whole area. Now it's dry and the clear looks a little hazy, but the car has NO SCRATCHES whatsoever. I'm going to try and cut and buff it tomorrow. Hopefully I built the clear up enough. I know it sounds like I had a stupid idea, but I'm really hoping this works...

20150612_181713_zpsnzgxa35u.jpg
 
clear???? must be why some of us are old school single stage?

sorry for your problems, I know it sucks for our cars to not be up to snuff.

car sitting out in the sun, lower quality materials, maybe car not being taken down to bare metal, rusted pitted metal requiring heavier primers to level?? if we drive out cars like intended, they will show wear, but clear peeling off would make even me pissed.
 
barbee6043 said:
clear???? must be why some of us are old school single stage?

sorry for your problems, I know it sucks for our cars to not be up to snuff.

car sitting out in the sun, lower quality materials, maybe car not being taken down to bare metal, rusted pitted metal requiring heavier primers to level?? if we drive out cars like intended, they will show wear, but clear peeling off would make even me pissed.
Click to expand...

I was pretty upset when I saw it. I had just taken it to the car wash and saw a bubble of water so I poked it thinking it was some junk sitting on the car, then sure enough it peeled off...

This paint job is 4 years old, and it was done before I got it. It has it's share of runs and low spots honestly, but til this happened the whole thing looked just fine. Today I'm going to polish it out and see what happened. I am pretty optimistic. I can't save the spot that already messed up, but We'll see how it goes. The roof has a few faded looking spots as well. I am unlucky in the fact that I don't have a garage and the sun does hit the trunk area a lot during the day where I park it.
 
Well, it took about 2 hours on the buffer just for that little bit of surface area - the window to trunk basically.

I feel like if i knock it down again and add more clear this would look perfect, but Mopar Ralley is tomorrow morning so I don't have time. I knocked everything down with super fine wet-dry, and then polished forever...

I think it looks ok - considering the whole trunk was light orange from all those "scratches" and it got real bad which prompted me just saying "F* IT" and painting the whole thing clear. I am glad I did, but need to spend more time on it and recoat it later.

20150613_104625_zpsniawzo8n.jpg


See! The scratches are gone. Does that mean the issue was with the clear coat? Or have I just added more clear and that has disguised it? Either way, I'm happy.

I also drew up a vinyl extension for my custom stripe, and printed it out on our vinyl plotter, and adhered it. It covers the spot where the clear coat peeled off.

I am glad that worked really.

20150613_162408_zpsilb2juai.jpg
 
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