In reverse order from how these were posted, first this...
Is the car white?
If so it probably is single stage and has no clear coat.
Not sure what other colors were single stage but have seen a lot of single stage white Toyota's.
Pictures please...
Correct. Toyota did not use a BC/CC paint system on a lot of their white passenger cars.
White paint uses Titanium Dioxide Powder for pigment and this makes the paint very hard which means it will resist deterioration more than all other colors. This is why you see a lot of LARGE things that people don't ever want to re-paint again painted white. Think water towers out in the middle of nowhere or large Jets.
Also I cover this in my article here, even talk about the Mohs Hardness Scale.
The Lesson White Paint Teaches Us
Mike Phillips said:
The Mohs Scale of Hardness
In 1822, an Austrian scientist by the name of Fredrick Mohs created a scale from 1 to 10, for measuring and determining hardness. Hardness refers to the measure of resistance a surfaces has to abrasion. Talc is rated at 1 while a diamond is rated at 10.
Titanium dioxide, the substance used as pigmentation in white paint, is rated at 7 on the Mohs scale. As far as pigments go, titanium dioxide is very hard. By contrast, black paints, (single-stage), are soft. The pigment used to make paint black is Carbon black, which has a Mohs hardness rating of 2.
While some will argue the Mohs Hardness Scale isn't the best way to explain paint hardness, in this example I'm only using it as an indicator of the hardness of different substances used as pigments or colorants used in automotive paints and when it comes to a single stage paint the type of pigment used WILL effect the hardness or softness of the resin/paint and this will affect how easy or hard it is for someone to work on the paint.
Hi,
I've got a friend's 1999 Toyota Corolla that appears to be badly neglected, left out in the weather 24/7 & never waxed.
The car is 14 years old and the owner and/or owners have neglected the paint. So it's normal for the paint to finally give up the ghost.
I have a criteria for deciding if I'll work on someone's car and that is the person has to actually care about their car. If they don't care then there's no reason to fix it.
You see, if they don't care, then if you fix it it will just revert back to how it was before you fixed it. This means that while your intentions are both good and noble, you're wasting your time, money and energy when you could be working on something for someone that cars. That's just me of course.
Someone actually PM'd me the exact same above scenario this week and I gave them the same answer.
I'm trying to assess whether it can be detailed without damage to the base coat below the overly oxidized clear coat.
A couple of points....
If the car does or did have a clearcoat and now the basecoat is exposed nothing you do is going to make it any worse. Of course if the car does have a clear coat and it is failing working on it is a waste of time anyway as the only HONEST fix for clear coat failure is to repaint the car.
If the car is single stage paint then you can probably fix it if it isn't past the point of no return.
See my
how-to book for more information on paint condition category
"Past the point of no return" or read my article here,
Page 37 - Paint Condition Categories
The first thing you need to do is determine if the car does in fact have a basecoat/clearcoat paint system or a single stage paint system.
I cover how to do this test in my how-to book and in this article,
How to Test for Single Stage or Clear Coat Paint
To test for a single stage paint, try to find a light colored or white polish if you're working on any kind of pigmented paint. If you're testing white paint then try to use a polish with a color to it and a dark colored cloth, (so you can confirm that you're removing white paint and not just seeing the color of the paint).
Use an ample amount for plenty of lubrication as you're going to want to push firmly if no oxidation is present as was the case with the finish on the classic car.
Confirmed, we're working on a single stage paint... also note the heavier accumulation were my fingers pressed down with the most pressure... this is because you can exert more pressure to the small area of your finger tips than you can with your entire hand, you can use this to work for you or cause problems depending upon what you're trying to do...
You can find examples of what clear coat failure looks like in this article,
The Clearcoat Failure Photo Gallery Archive
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