QuestionHi Gary:
I have a 1994 sedan that was repainted in 2005 and now the new paint appears to be failing in a couple of areas. Nothing unusual has happened to the car.
The original factory paint job (1994) showed clear coat oxidizing and flaking especially on the roof. In 2005 I obtained several bids and went with an average, reputable firm. Initially, the paint job looked fine with no noticeable issues.
As early as 2009/10 I noticed two distinct problems:
1. On the engine hood of the car, paint was "popping" up in about 10-15 areas. At first, I thought these were "rock chips", but in looking further, the paint and clear coat seemed to be curling up from the newest primer (like a miniature start of a orange peel). These averaged from 1/8" to 3/8".
The paint seemed to be split at the center of these and then uplifted, but still attached on one side. Looking even closer, some of these areas( not yet uplifted) had a pin sized dark spot in the center with cracks extending to about 1/8".
2. Meanwhile, up on the roof, the clear coat seems to be doing the same thing that the factory clear coat paint did: It's flaking off, turning opaque and almost "blistering". This is especially prominent on the edges of the roof-near seams, but appears to be across the entire roof.
Side panels and,to some degree,the trunk are fine---so far.
Let me know what you think? Paint? Application?
Thanks
AnswerHi Mike,
I think this is an application issue. My guess is when the car was painted they had some issues with the overall appearance of the finished coat of clear. It sounds like with the way you describe:
<"like a miniature start of a orange peel). These averaged from 1/8" to 3/8". The paint seemed to be split at the center of these and then uplifted, but still attached on one side. Looking even closer, some of these areas( not yet uplifted) had a pin sized dark spot in the center with cracks extending to about 1/8".>
This sounds like what is known as "fisheye". This is basically a contamination problem in the application procedure. This could come from improper cleaning of the surface before refinishing, air borne contamination, air line contamination, or even spray gun contamination. It appears to me once they noticed the problem after your vehicle was painted they probably wet sanded the finish to minimize the defect and then polished it. In doing this, too much of the clear-coat was removed thus causing the clear-coat to fail from U.V. exposure.
Of course this is a best guess without actually inspecting the finish. This is a typical scenario of shops that have paint failures. I see it very often "Too much finish removed in the wet sand & polishing step". To avoid this shops need to add a couple extra coats of clear when they know they will need to wet sand & polish.
In my opinion, Product failure is pretty unlikely because most major manufacturers produce very large batches of product at a time and if product failure did happen it would be on a very large scale with many vehicles having the exact same problem.
