When Can It Be Waxed?

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SpeedThrills

SpeedThrills

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Not an a body, but I don’t know who else to ask.
I had the left fender, hood, and roof repainted (color and clear) on our ‘07 Accord back in November of 2020.
The guy said don’t wax it for six months because the clear isn’t cured. I waited a while, don’t know if it was six months.
Now, the roof is cracking. The hood and fender are okay.
I’ve never heard of waiting six months, but I haven’t been involved in paint work for 35 years.
Is this true?
He says he’ll fix it, but he’s accusing me of waxing it before the clear was cured.
 
SpeedThrills said:
Not an a body, but I don’t know who else to ask.
I had the left fender, hood, and roof repainted (color and clear) on our ‘07 Accord back in November of 2020.
The guy said don’t wax it for six months because the clear isn’t cured. I waited a while, don’t know if it was six months.
Now, the roof is cracking. The hood and fender are okay.
I’ve never heard of waiting six months, but I haven’t been involved in paint work for 35 years.
Is this true?
He says he’ll fix it, but he’s accusing me of waxing it before the clear was cured.
Click to expand...
When I was doing custom painting, I always told people to wait at least 3 months, depending on how much clear I put on their vehicle, sometimes as long as six months yes. An 07 Accord probably had two coats of clear for a total of 2 mils thick(factory clear is quite thin actually), so 6 months would have been plenty to wait. The reason for waiting, is that yes, it takes time for the paint to cure(even after baking) and for all the solvents to leave the multiple layers of paint. When you apply wax, you seal off the surface, and any escaping basecoat solvents have nowhere to go except back into the paint and "burn" it, Ive seen it happen, especially on black, the color will get chalky or milky in appearance. It doesnt always happen, but sometimes it does.
As for the cracking, waxing too early will NOT cause that, incorrect application will though. And without a picture, I dont know exactly what kind of cracking you have.
My advice, take it to a painter who knows what they are doing and get them to diagnose what may have happened so you have some ammo to go back to that "painter" with.
Hope this helps :)
 
SpeedThrills said:
Not an a body, but I don’t know who else to ask.
I had the left fender, hood, and roof repainted (color and clear) on our ‘07 Accord back in November of 2020.
The guy said don’t wax it for six months because the clear isn’t cured. I waited a while, don’t know if it was six months.
Now, the roof is cracking. The hood and fender are okay.
I’ve never heard of waiting six months, but I haven’t been involved in paint work for 35 years.
Is this true?
He says he’ll fix it, but he’s accusing me of waxing it before the clear was cured.
Click to expand...
Why was it repainted? Was the hood stripped and the roof not stripped? I doubt wax had anything to do with the failure.
 
70SwingerGuy said:
When I was doing custom painting, I always told people to wait at least 3 months, depending on how much clear I put on their vehicle, sometimes as long as six months yes. An 07 Accord probably had two coats of clear for a total of 2 mils thick(factory clear is quite thin actually), so 6 months would have been plenty to wait. The reason for waiting, is that yes, it takes time for the paint to cure(even after baking) and for all the solvents to leave the multiple layers of paint. When you apply wax, you seal off the surface, and any escaping basecoat solvents have nowhere to go except back into the paint and "burn" it, Ive seen it happen, especially on black, the color will get chalky or milky in appearance. It doesnt always happen, but sometimes it does.
As for the cracking, waxing too early will NOT cause that, incorrect application will though. And without a picture, I dont know exactly what kind of cracking you have.
My advice, take it to a painter who knows what they are doing and get them to diagnose what may have happened so you have some ammo to go back to that "painter" with.
Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...
I doubt this guy did two coats.
His work for us had been pretty good for us, up until this. He's always been a bit evasive; tries to talk like a salesman, and is not good at it. Where we live, good craftsmen are hard to find. (That's one reason I do any projects I can.)
It is black. (A deep midnight blue, but looks black.) It's not chalky or milky. It looks good, except for the cracking.
I wasn't able to get a picture that was clear. I'll try again, if necessary.
I can get "ammo" from someone else, but it comes down to me vs. him, and he always tells me he's the experienced pro, in so many words. He says he'll fix it, and I believe he will. We have a mutual friend, and I'm sure he doesn't want any problem there. I just gotta hope he gets it right this time. As I said, his other work for us has been good, and he always meets his schedule, he's just a a bit quirky.
Bodyperson said:
Why was it repainted? Was the hood stripped and the roof not stripped? I doubt wax had anything to do with the failure.
Click to expand...
A friend backed into it. The fender and headlight housing were replaced. He paid for that, and while it was there, we paid for the hood and roof repaint. We had them painted because the paint was falling off, or whatever that problem Honda had is called.
I have no idea what he stripped. I would think he stripped the hood and roof because the paint was falling off.
65TerrorCuda said:
Do you use a car cover?
Click to expand...
No cover, no garage.
 
I think because he said he'd fix it, he knows it's not because I waxed it. Not chalky or milky, as 70Swingerguy said.

I'll update , but it'll be while. He's recovering from Tunnel Carpal.

Oh, I tried to get a picture again, but all I have is my cell phone, and it won't sjhow it.

Thanks all!
 
SpeedThrills said:
I doubt this guy did two coats.
Click to expand...
I mentioned two coats because two coats is the standard amount of clear that it would take to give you a 2 mil film thickness, which is standard in the industry. Mind you, painters will say that we think that car manufacturers are starting to cheap out and not put that much clear on new vehicles anymore. Im really curious to see what you mean by cracking. The only thing I can come up with, is that he used a cheap lacquer primer and whatever topcoat he put on reacted with it. But then again, that would be noticeable almost immediately, so Im kind of at a loss to understand without seeing pics
 
Honda had delamination issues on a lot of their colors. I was a painter in a Honda dealership for 12 years. There were service bulletins for these colors and they were supposed to be stripped to clean metal, etch primed and painted. Any dealer can tell you if yours was one of them. I'm assuming he sanded it enough to get to paint adhesion and the undercoats continued failing. Get the service bulletin and hand it to him.
 
TF360 said:
Why? would it cause any problems?
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It won't cure as fast, could scratch paint, chemicals in covers, trapping vapors. If you overthink stuff.

In my painting book I read years back, it said not to use car covers, set anything on the paint, wax it, wash it with anything except water etc., until it's 100% cured. And thick paint can take much longer than 6 months to cure, as I discovered on my first paint job.
Here's a test, smell the paint, does it still smell like paint? If so, I consider it still not cured.
Parked in the sun every day in New Mexico things cure pretty fast, unless you make mistakes like I did. I had shrink cracks show up 20 years after painting but I consider it patina.
 
So if paint takes all this time to cure, how does the factory do it? I don't remember hearing not to wax a new car.
 
I think they use ovens to cure the paint. And probably robots do most of the painting if not all, so less mistakes. Plus chemistry has changed.
No idea what the dealer said in the 60's about waxing. Probably sure do whatever you want
 
SpeedThrills said:
So if paint takes all this time to cure, how does the factory do it? I don't remember hearing not to wax a new car.
Click to expand...
You don't drive the car home the day after it was painted for one thing, and secondly the factory bakes their finishes on significantly higher than we do. Typical body shops look for around 140 degrees METAL temp for a certain amount of time. This time is really enough to get it out of the booth and bring another one in.
 
65TerrorCuda said:
I think they use ovens to cure the paint. And probably robots do most of the painting if not all, so less mistakes. Plus chemistry has changed.
No idea what the dealer said in the 60's about waxing. Probably sure do whatever you want
Click to expand...
Unfortunately the quality of paint on newer vehicles has declined significantly. There are more paint defects in new cars than I get in a body shop environment. I typically paint 1-2 brand new cars per week repairing factory defects. I think the factories have realized it's cheaper to pay us warranty to fix them than to pay the factory employees to correct these issues at the factory.
 
I tell people that ive done paint work for not to wax it for a few months. In opinion what would happen if you did wax it to soon is you would get pimples. If you would break one of them open you would get a clear liquid out of them. The wax is trapping the solvents.
 
I just want to update:

It took a while for our schedules to jive up, but he just fixed it, as he said he would.

He said it was the clear coat sinking; something about curing at a different rate than the base? He can be difficult to follow, and interrupts constantly, while talking fast. It's a real workout having a conversation with him. He said he sanded progressively from 800 to 2000, and then buffed it. I understand that, but I truly thought it was going to have to be repainted.

It does look good. I think he got lucky. That's the last time I deal with him.

I'm sorry I couldn't get a good picture of it, and thanks to all for the ideas and input.
 
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