What is with my paint? Puzzled (Pictures)

Hey guys,

Hope everyone's holiday season is great!

I got a favor to ask if anyone knows what is going on with the paint on my car?

I owned the car for maybe four years, paint always looked brand spanking new on it. Basically, I haven't washed her in about three months. It had Wolf's BW on it since the summer. The car stays outside most of the time. Today, I pull it in the garage and noticed there are spots all over the paint. I thought it was dirt, but I ONR washed the trunk to inspect it, completely dried it and was shocked to see what is going on with the paint...

I have never seen anything like this. Doesn't look like water spots (at least to me), doesn't look like clearcoat failure because it's still extremely shiny and "deep" looking. Can't feel it, no texture to the spots.... I took these pics in a dark setting to get the best shots, but yes, it looks as bad in person as it does in these pics.... not sure what to do. Is it car cancer of some sort?









I only washed the trunk to see what it was... the rest of the car is still dirty....now kinda scared to wash the rest of it fearing the whole paint looks like this.

 

It looks like some kind of contaminated water (acid, industrial fallout, etc). Only other thing I can think of is if somebody purposely poured some kind of chemical on there to vandalize. Have any enemies??

Have you polished with anything yet, or is this after JUST washing?

 

Thanks for your response. Well, I definitely don't know if I have enemies... I live in the middle of nowhere way out of the city by the forest with nothing around.

This is just after washing. I did do several passes with clay over a section of the trunk and it didn't do anything (Admittedly, I had a feeling it wasn't to do anything either). Haven't tried polishing yet. I'll do a 50/50 shot after I polish half the trunk tonight. I won't bother doing the whole car yet because it's very cold in my garage.

I did have a closer look at the car (no spot light just the overhead garage lighting) and it's pretty clear these spots are all over the paint. All over the roof, the hood, etc.

If it is Body Wrap failure than it must have been something crazy that would have caused it. At first I thought maybe it was staining from citrus degreaser that I sometimes use as a prewash before wax.... but I've used the product so many times and never had it stain anything... and the last time I used it was in the summer (more like late spring) so if it did stain the paint it would have been noticeable before I did the BW application.

 

i have wondered what our cars will look like when opti-coat/Hardbody/Aquarts and any of the nano sealants start to fail what it will look like, i dont think these products have been out long enough for real world applications when Nano Sealants start to fail what they may look like.

Ide vote for Body Wrap failure, how long as it been on? I know hardbody is 18-24 months longevity, not sure about Body Wrap though

 

I want to say I applied it around end of March or so. So it could very well be the case. I hope so, because that would mean an easy fix, otherwise not sure what to do. I should get polishing in a few hours when I get a minute.

 

If it is BW failure, I am trying to see if it would make more sense to just wash the car and add another layer so it evens out? I don't want to polish the whole car every several months if you know what I mean.

 

I I polished a good sized section on the trunk with the Flex. I tried:

LC black pad w/ 106fa = Made no difference
LC orange w/ SIP = Also no difference

Then I did an IPA wipedown on the entire trunk and added a new layer of BW, let it cure for about 15, buffed it off with a MF....

Made absolutely no difference. It's like the spots are below the clearcoat almost like discolored paint. If the car has been repainted by the previous owner.... why would it all of a sudden do this now? I used no harsh cleaners on it EVER. Always has some sort of wax/sealant on it. Kinda sucks to see this happen when you put so much effort in keeping it clean. Lost on what to do. It's definitely not clearcoat failure, no chance.

 

Are any of your other vehicles exhibiting this spotting? Have you contacted any neighbors to learn whether they might have these too?

 

Dude so sorry your going through this, i know what a sickening feeling this is. Im sure someone else will chime in with more knowledge. Do you have a paint meter or know of someone locally that does that could verify if your car was re-sprayed?

It almost looks like the paint is "delaminating" from the primer but is captured by the clear, which i would think would "push" the clear up with it if it was but who knows.

 

I'll have to check on that tomorrow.

That's definitely good food for thought. It definitely makes sense what you're talking about. I've personally never painted anything professionally, but I have spoken and know some pros and know the importance of proper prep work that goes into a paint job. It just throws me off completely because it's happening now. If the surface wasn't prepped right before painting, I'd assume that it would not lay down properly right after you spray it or after you clearcoat it. I mean, I've had the car at least four years, why all of a sudden now? I guess anything can happen so who knows lol.

Damn this is sad.

 

It doesn't look like it is on the top surface of the clear coat in the pictures. Does it look like it is on the surface in person? I have had some dealer applied tire dressing that stained an Infiniti Q37 paint behind the wheel wells that I could not remove no matter what cleaner/degreaser I used. Polishing only made it fade a little bit but was still quite noticeable. The stain was deep into the clear coat. It must have been a really tough silicone.

 

It must be pretty cold in Chicago. Would you say that this is the coldest snap there so far this year? Maybe there is trapped water under the BW and the cold has crystallized the water changing the appearance. But I would have thought that when you polished the surface it would have taken care of that. Maybe BW is tougher than we think. You should PM Jesse. It must get pretty cold in Hungary so maybe he has seen it happen before.

 

Definitely doesn't look like it's on top of the clearcoat.

 

Sorry about your issue. Looks like its a problem with the bodywork/paint. You mentioned that you looked at the hood and roof as well. How about the vertical surfaces? If they are ok, then its likely not an LSP issue.

 

I agree Ken,

I don't think it's LSP related at all at this point.

I'll have a look at the vertical panels this evening. I'm just not going to touch it any further as far as polishing goes. I think the SIP should have removed the BW if that was really the issue, and doing any further polishing with a yellow pad or aggressive compounding will likely only cause more damage. At least the car looks great from a few feet away, and if I polish through the clear to get to the issue it will look even worse!

 

It looks a bit like clear coat failure, as when the clear coat is still on but isn't sticking to the basecoat any longer.
I wouldn't be so sure that it isn't LSP related. Most clear coats are semipermeable which means that they can "push and pull" some fluids, e.g. water. It may be, that the water doesn't directly enter the paint when you're e.g. washing it, but if the car stays in a area with high humidity for some time, some water will "enter" the paint. Water is stopped under the basecoat.

Some time ago I talked with a guy who's teaching automotive painting(he's quite knowledgeable on the painting-side of things, he's had several courses on specific car makers, has helped Scholl develop products etc.). In general, he's not fond of nano coatings. In the early days, the coatings didn't allow any kind of fluid evaporation from the car's paint, which meant that the paint needed to be just about insanely dry before applying anything nano. Which to be honest isn't possible. So what you end up with, is locking the water in the paint. The water would then form in small spots under the coating, and it would be very visible on lighter colored cars. I don't know if it is the case on your car, but it could be one of many possible reasons. Jesse @ Wolf's Chemicals should be able to chime in on this aspect - it's a subject that should be known by all companies producing nano-products.

I also don't know how the specific paint is like on your car, as I'm mainly dealing with european cars, but some early types of clear coats on european cars aren't exactly well thought-through e.g. Seat's solid clear coated colors, VW's older clear coated paints. They can react with harsh chemicals; it seems that the only focus they had was that the clear should minimize UV rays and nothing else. But solid colors still change a bit under the clear coat, so the UV protection isn't exactly doing it's job.


Kind regards,

Ebbe

 

Interesting points Ebbe!