Beware of Subaru's brand new black paint!

andrew8729

andrew8729

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Brand new 2014 Subaru Forester turbo in for correction and coating. These Foresters are all built in Japan, and I'm not sure if any one has dealt with the brand new ones yet but let me give you a couple of interesting things I found with doing this job. First and foremost this was by far the worst paint I have ever dealt with. It was so soft it shouldn't even be allowed on vehicles, and so sticky it was super hard to work with. One other thing I found was there was a very weird almost coating like sticky/oily substance from head to toe on the vehicle. I'm not sure if this was for shipping purposes but it was a big pain to get off! It was also in every nook and cranny, behind door handles ect. I went through various methods on trying to remove the substance, clay which marred the paint heavily, and IPA, which didn't cut it, and left marring as well, and settled on a chemical prep polish. So after decon, I started the correction, ended up with a finish pad, and a finish polish and my flex3401 to get the job done. The paint was wrecked from the dealer and had swirls and scratches everywhere. I'll highlight them in the attaches pics. I corrected the paint and followed up with a coating for long lasting protection. Wheels and glass were also coated.View attachment 24672View attachment 24673View attachment 24674
 
I've NEVER been a fan of Subaru paint. I had an 09 Legacy (obsidian Black Pearl) that I could correct to perfection and a quick IPA/quick detail spray would put marring and swirls in it. It was the only disappointing thing about the car (ran amazing, never had a single issue in 65k miles). Unfortunately for me, it was a huge issue. My wife had an outback with the same poor paint. Luckily hers was pearl white so not as noticeable as my car. I went back to VW's!
 
MshawnBauer said:
I've NEVER been a fan of Subaru paint. I had an 09 Legacy (obsidian Black Pearl) that I could correct to perfection and a quick IPA/quick detail spray would put marring and swirls in it. It was the only disappointing thing about the car (ran amazing, never had a single issue in 65k miles). Unfortunately for me, it was a huge issue. My wife had an outback with the same poor paint. Luckily hers was pearl white so not as noticeable as my car. I went back to VW's!
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Yes they are great vehicles, and have worked with their paint in the past, but this one was over the top! Thanks for looking and sharing 😊
 
My first thought was that they had not prepped the vehicle right (and I still think they didn't ...) -- but man - that's some delicate paint for a vehicle that's supposed to be "durable" and do everything.... I wonder if that's a result of their environmentally-friendly push ?
 
SlightlyBent said:
My first thought was that they had not prepped the vehicle right (and I still think they didn't ...) -- but man - that's some delicate paint for a vehicle that's supposed to be "durable" and do everything.... I wonder if that's a result of their environmentally-friendly push ?
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Not sure, subaru's are known for soft paint, but this was just ridiculous. The dealer absolutely did not prep the vehicle in the right way, but I've come to accept that, and it makes me a lot of money lol.
 
I've driven subaru for years and their paint has always sucked. I'm a sucker for awd and turbos what can I say..
 
wrb_subie said:
I've driven subaru for years and their paint has always sucked. I'm a sucker for awd and turbos what can I say..
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My first vehicle was a Subaru, loved it to death! We uses to burn tanks of fuel in the winters just drifting every where all the time! Lots of fun! Thanks for sharing and thanks for looking!
 
I'm a sucker too, but...glad I got a full pay t job for 200 bucks, insurance loop holes.

All my friends Subarus I have corrected have been fun you just need to be careful, super easy to work with, but super easy to hurt, ha.

wrb_subie said:
I've driven subaru for years and their paint has always sucked. I'm a sucker for awd and turbos what can I say..
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arisking said:
I'm a sucker too, but...glad I got a full pay t job for 200 bucks, insurance loop holes.

All my friends Subarus I have corrected have been fun you just need to be careful, super easy to work with, but super easy to hurt, ha.
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This one was not fun lol! Very difficult to work with, and super sticky, polishes would weld/plate themselves to the paint, if you tried to remove it, it marred and you were back at square one! Came up with a system to get it done though. Thanks for looking and thanks for sharing!!
 
I've been out of the detail game for a while thanks to the military, but I detailed 2 black subarus (an 05 and 07) and this wasn't an issue, but your not the first person to say the new black gets tacky when polished. And as wrb subie said ALL subaru paint is crap. The only benefit to the older subarus that I did was they corrected quickly.
 
tripperfx3 said:
I've been out of the detail game for a while thanks to the military, but I detailed 2 black subarus (an 05 and 07) and this wasn't an issue, but your not the first person to say the new black gets tacky when polished. And as wrb subie said ALL subaru paint is crap. The only benefit to the older subarus that I did was they corrected quickly.
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Yes it sure is a pain compared to the soft and easy of the past. And thank you for your service to our country, thanks for looking and sharing!
 
Thanks for the info, My wife has a orange peral 2013 CrossTrek. the paint always feels oily also. and this is even after hail repair!. I need to go to town on hers but man there is a LOT of plastic to tape off also!!!
 
beamerstrumpet said:
Thanks for the info, My wife has a orange peral 2013 CrossTrek. the paint always feels oily also. and this is even after hail repair!. I need to go to town on hers but man there is a LOT of plastic to tape off also!!!
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Yea the crosstrek has a ton of plastic! Cool looking though! A chemical prep polish worked very well in stripping what ever was on the paint. I needed to fully strip it because even though I was polishing, that residue was giving and adverse affect when polishing. It was very odd, never had something like that effect a polish, it didn't cut right and effected the break down as well. So I has to make sure the paint was squeaky clean and free of the odd residue
 
andrew8729 said:
Brand new 2014 Subaru Forester turbo in for correction and coating. These Foresters are all built in Japan, and I'm not sure if any one has dealt with the brand new ones yet but let me give you a couple of interesting things I found with doing this job. First and foremost this was by far the worst paint I have ever dealt with. It was so soft it shouldn't even be allowed on vehicles, and so sticky it was super hard to work with. One other thing I found was there was a very weird almost coating like sticky/oily substance from head to toe on the vehicle. I'm not sure if this was for shipping purposes but it was a big pain to get off! It was also in every nook and cranny, behind door handles ect. I went through various methods on trying to remove the substance, clay which marred the paint heavily, and IPA, which didn't cut it, and left marring as well, and settled on a chemical prep polish. So after decon, I started the correction, ended up with a finish pad, and a finish polish and my flex3401 to get the job done. The paint was wrecked from the dealer and had swirls and scratches everywhere. I'll highlight them in the attaches pics. I corrected the paint and followed up with a coating for long lasting protection. Wheels and glass were also coated
Click to expand...

sorry you had such a tough time. I hate days like you described where the whole thing just is a mess start to finish. appreciate the heads up though.
 
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