ok so in a matter of weeks ( i think) my paint has gone from shiny to dull, what happened? is it the sun or what? i mainly have seen a difference after each time it rains, i see water spots but when i try to get them off they dont come off? what happened and can i fix it or am i gonna need new paint?, please help b4 it gets worse

 

post some pics of the problem to help us better understand

 

Yeah, like what kinda paint/system did you use?

 

have you waxed the car recently? that would be my first attempt, wash it really good with a dish soap to remove old wax. then wax it with a high quality wax, meguirs, mothers, or some other wax, everybody likes different ones. see if that helps. you might want to think about clay baring it, you can probably find one at most auto stores, they are pretty easy to use and include directions usually. let us know if that helps.

 

dish soap is the worst soap to use.....if your seeing water spots sounds like you either need to put a filter on your hose or dry your car better.

as far as fade, well the sun will do that.....however unless you have a metallic paint it shouldn't be noticeable in a single years time. dry a good product like zaino, wizards, mothers/meguiars professional series type setups to bring it back to life.

 

you use the dish soap to get old wax off, most true car soap wont take old wax off. there for the need of dish soap, dont use it every time but to take old wax off it's the best way. unless you have another which wouldn't surprise me, you seem fairly knowledgable about the appearance of cars....

 

if wax doesn't bring it back, you may want to get it buffed out. Makes a huge difference. Then use meguiars #7 (i think) show car polish. I've buffed out a few cars, had great results. Possible a clay bar before buffing as well.
1. Wash/dry
2. Clay bar
3. Buff
4. Polish

 

didn't mean anything by it, it's just dish soap is very "tough" on paint.

i don't use wax on my cars so beyond using a clay bar to remove it i couldn't help there. i suppose if you dilluted some of it into a regular soap it would be ok but i wouldn't. i've just seen too many cars where it has really ruined the paint.

 

ok so today i washed my car real nice and clean then waxed the hell out of it, no improvement at all, im really starting to get angry cuz i have no idea what happened, ill see if i can post pics later but to get a better idea of what it looks like, (my car is bright red) imagine that after a nice rain there are water spots all over ur car, ok... they are still there and arent coming off, its like the sun burned them into my paint, i really need some help on this cuz its makin my car look like s**t, thanx

 

well without knowing i would guess three things.

a. you did do something wrong one time and the sun did "burn" it into your paint which would require a wetsand a good buff job.

b. you are using hose water that is considered "hard" with contaminating minerals that will turn into hard water spots when dried and then either let it burn into the paint but the sun or just aren't using the right product to remove.

c. your paint is fading before your eyes and you should run for the hills.....


paint typically won't fall apart in a few weeks unless you really do something stupid. go pick up a clay bar from mothers and test it on a section of the car. if it removes the problem your good and if not consult a paint expert in your area. there are many types of compounds that can be used to cure this sort of thing, however you can also make things alot worse.

 

ok so what is mothers?? and what is a clay bar? i mean im sure its a bar of clay but a little more specific so i dotn sound like a retard when i ask where it is in some store, and if my paint is fading b4 my eyes ( ) what am i supposed to do, what are yalls thouts of maaco, im running a pretty tight budget here

 

can you get a nice digital pic of the car 3 megapixel or more? then i could have better idea of what you need to do focusing on the major problem areas.

mothers is a brand of car care products. most auto parts stores and even some major department stores carry their products.

the clay bar is an actual product that mothers makes which works quite well however it isn't cheap. it will run you roughly 15-20 and it includes a small bar of "clay", detailer mist and typical a small trial size of their wax. forget about the wax but the clay bar and the detailer spray is some of the best stuff out there for the price.

try it on one of your problem areas......if you follow the directions and it still doesn't fix your problem then we can consider alternative methods but for the money this is your best bet to fixing the problem.

 

I wouldn't run to Maaco already... try fixing the paint first. The clay bar idea is a good one and will probably help. If it doesn't, I'd go as far as wet-sanding the paint and then clay bar and polish before considering the paint beyond repair.

You get a lot of acid rain or something?

 

ok so heres a pic of the problem hopefully yall can see what im talking about now...

 

ok let try again, sorry,...

 

ok heres another one...

 

what the I dunno man... it looks tesselated? That looks weird... it looks nothing like water stains.

Try what I recommended above.

 

It looks as though you are experiencing a problem known as "chalking" to which the paint starts to resemble a chalk board look. This is usually caused by a poor mix of paint. Has your car been repainted? Regardless of the cause, do what these guys recommended, clay bar, polish, wax. If you have one, use a polishing wheel, you can pick one up for $40 at autozone (be careful not to burn your paint!!!). I would ditch the bonets that come with the polisher, and get the velcro pads from an automotive paint supply store. I would also recommend using mcquires 3 step process, including heavy polish or rubbing compound, the finishing polish, and the wax. Any auto store will have this. Good luck. Unfortunately, to do it right you may have to spend $80, but that is better than $1,500 min on a quality paint job.

 

paint looks good........how long has it been painted? start easy, try the mothers clay bar.

 

if it was freshly repainted.... I hope he didn't wax it too soon.. that's what it looks like whenever you wax a car too soon after a fresh repaint.. cloudy

 

heres another pic of the problem, if the paint looks dull its becuz i enhanced the contrast to make the faded areas stand out more so u can see it better

 

man i swaer the last time i saw acid rain effects, thats exactly what it looked like. Might wanna check into that.

 

it looks like water stains to me. try a good polish or wax. if that doesn't work, you will have to compound it with a buffer

 

86irockit is right. i just did my car and it turned out great.
1.) use regular carwash, NOT dishsoap and wash it really good.

2.)meguiars deep crystal paint cleaner

3.) meguiars #7 polish brings the shine and richness back

4.)meguiars gold class wax is a very good wax to use, bit i tried a
new one this time, i think eagle one makes it. its a synthetic micro something wax/polish that has smaller particles than carnuba does, says it fills in inperfections smoother or something, and it turned out very nice. using a microfiber towel to buff it out makes it really shine great. i hightly recommend microfiber. make sure you get the wax on after a coat or 2 of polish or itll dry out.

the most important part about bringing the shine back is the polish, it made my faded paint look fairly new again and i was impressed.
i also did some wetsanding on a few spots like the roof behind the ttops and rear bumper where the clear started to fade and get air under it. used 800 to clean it up and 1500 between coats (make sure you use enamel, laquer will make it peel and bubble). it was a rattlecan job but it turned out awesome. just take your time. later



--matt

 

once again i am not saying to use dish soap on a regular basis, maybe once a year, to remove old excess wax, since most common "car washes" typically have a form of wax in them it doesn't take old wax off, leaving things to be desired.