Waxes can temporarily mask a peeling problem, only to fade in the days and weeks afterward, revealing the issue again.Īs you use the compound in the damaged area, turn over and examine your applicator pad. Be sure to use a compound that has no wax. When that happens, test the area with a polishing or rubbing compound once it has been cleaned and dried. In this case, look for dull, faded or cloudy paint. Simple! When washing and drying your car, always examine the paint surface for tell-tale signs of issues. While oxidation should be addressed with urgency, it’s typically something you can fix on your own, especially when you catch it early. Obviously, the severity of these two issues is vastly different. With too much exposure, the UV rays break down the bond between the paint and clear coat, and the clear coat begins to lift away from the color coat underneath. Even at a microscopic level, these weak points in the protective layer become doorways for UV rays to pass through. Eventually, after this happens over and over again, year after year, the clear coat loses some of its elasticity and starts to craze and crack. Typically, this happens because the body panels of your car expand and contract ever-so-slightly in hot and cold temperatures. Your clear coat starts to peel after the sun’s UV rays penetrate through the clear coat and start attacking the bond between the color coat of paint and the clear coat on top. Oxidation, while serious, isn’t our primary focus in this article, so we’ll save the science behind that issue for another day. These UV rays are the primary cause of both oxidation and peeling clear coats. But the most damaging thing your clear coat faces all day, every day is ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Of course, there are the obvious things like bumps, scrapes, water, soil, hail, gravel, bugs, tar, bird droppings and all kinds of other objects. Your car’s clear coat withstands high pressure and significant abuse every day of its life. But, if the problem isn’t just oxidation, if the problem is clear coat failure, you have only one option to fix it, and it’s not fast, cheap or easy. And once they’re repaired, you can use surface protectants to prevent future oxidation. Is your paint looking faded, dull and cloudy from oxidation, or is something even more serious going on? Finding the answer to this question is a real moment of truth because you can restore most oxidized surfaces yourself relatively quickly, easily and affordably. But, even though we see this issue less frequently than we did 20 years ago, it still does occur, so why gamble with your car? It’s important to know how to spot damage to your clear coat and what to do once you have.įor starters, you should act fast to determine exactly what’s wrong. Even under harsh conditions with no special clear coat protectant, modern clear coats can last for years.
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