Polishing enhanced / brought out paint cracks ?

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chefwong

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Was helping my bro-in-law on polishing out his car. It's a 2010 that has had its hood painted twice. Once it was keyed, another when it need to be blended in with a quarter panel hit.

During decontam. , did not notice any major issues
Post polishing, there are spots in the hood which appear to be paint/clear cracking. Just small 1 inch straight lines, here and there, and they are white as day - compared to the Jet Black Hood. It's as if polishing either enhanced possible clearcoat cracking that was not obvious before then.
 
pics would be helpful....but sure sounds like some failing clearcoat
 
Sounds like you may have polish residue in the "cracks" that is making them more visible. I would try to clean it out somehow. Obviously after that you want to use an LSP that doesn't leave white residue, either.
 
Never seen initial CC failure just short of the obvious ones you see when the spiderweb of cracking.

Just trying to understand root cause...figuring it's going to need to go back to the bodyshop...
The linear lines - was it due to polishing enhancing the CC cracking to the eye, or the latter...meaning the polishing accelerated the failure in these lines I'm seeing.
 
chefwong said:
... Just trying to understand root cause..
Click to expand...

The root cause is somewhat evident in your original post. If the panel has been repainted twice already as you state, then the paint film thickness is much thicker than desired and that excess thickness significantly increases the likelihood of cracks in the finish.

If you take it in to be repainted again, be sure to specify that stripping of the existing finish is part of the repaint. Do not simply sand and repaint over the existing finish or the cracks will reappear in a short time.

Back in my days of painting my general rule of thumb was to only repaint over a factory finish one time. Anything other than that got stripped completely before any refinishing.
 
Got it 2Black.

Kiddies are going to have another playdate next week. Going to PTG just curious to see what it reads.

I've had plastic trim body color paint matched on previous cars, and sometimes where my body guy says he won't touch with paint, as it won't last.

To analogize, are we saying the high film build does not allow the paint to ~flex~
 
2black1s said:
The root cause is somewhat evident in your original post. If the panel has been repainted twice already as you state, then the paint film thickness is much thicker than desired and that excess thickness significantly increases the likelihood of cracks in the finish.

If you take it in to be repainted again, be sure to specify that stripping of the existing finish is part of the repaint. Do not simply sand and repaint over the existing finish or the cracks will reappear in a short time.

Back in my days of painting my general rule of thumb was to only repaint over a factory finish one time. Anything other than that got stripped completely before any refinishing.
Click to expand...

i live in boston, how much you think it would cost me to get my hood and front end painted?
 
$1500 minimum...YMMV, but the KEY, and really the key, is to use a bodyshop you trust.
 
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