lizardkng

GAH!

No wonder it needed paint when I bought it, it was 6 years old...

Now its been sitting for at least that long, and needs paint even worse....too bad good paint is soooooo expensive, I dont see a paintjob in my future

Sorry, I had to vent....

bru333

At least it was a used car when you bought it and you knew the paint was bad. I was really upset when my '88 Formula that I bought new started to show signs of paint problems.

ES87iroc

You didn't have to decode your vin for that, ALL 91's were built in Van Nuys. 87 was the last year for the Ohio plant.

91rsowner4life

i have never heard of this VAN NUYS had paint problems? i do not think my 91 RS had paint problems i mean it did not look great but it had sat out said for a long time befor i bought. can you guys tell me any more about this paint issue?

bru333

There were 2 paint issues GM had. One was the clear coat flaking off the base (My '88 Formula was doing this after only 3 years from new).
Looks like a white spot at first.



The other was the primer peeling off, taking the base and clear with it!

Not sure, but I think F-bodies only had the clear coat issue? Someone else may be able to tell us.

91rsowner4life

now that i think about it i did have the black paint on my t-tops do that and there was a 92 teal RS i looked at that had a paint issue.

MikeDirntRulez

I forget where you can find it...

But long story short... due to California pollution requirements, the Van Nuys plant had to use a water-based solvent to paint their cars. This did not stick to cars as well as the more polluting paint they could use at the Ohio plant.

They issued a recall for it, but it was only if your car was under 3 years old or something like that.

Its late and there may be some parts wrong to this story, but it's the basic part of it.

MikeDirntRulez

My paint on my 1990 RS is pretty good.

It's not perfect, but it is pretty well for a 16 year old car. This makes me think the previous owner took advantage of the recall.

Although the plastic pieces (spoiler, front chin and grille area) the paint is starting to wear off, it sticks to the steel very well.

Mike-in-Orange

Plenty of cars have issues with clear coat failure, I see it everyday on domestics and imports. Most of the time (not always, but usually) the clear fails because the owner neglects the finish.

As for the primer peeling off, as MikeDirntRulez mentioned, that issue was down to new emissions regulations, and the problem was also to Ford in the early 1990s. Our '92 RS had paint just flaking off the roof and hatch lid, exactly the same way our next door neighbor's '93 Explorer was doing. We both used the same body shop to repaint the cars, and the shop owner said he sees it all the time on GM and Ford products from that time period.

Whether the problem is clear coat failure or flaking paint, the only solution is a repaint.