Faded paint

[Crossbow]

Hi Everyone. I have just bought what I hope will be a lovely TZD Turbo in dark grey. It has a full service history, was undersealed from new and has 129,000 on the clock. It is very solid, smooth riding and has a fair amount of poke. I am looking forward to a long term relationship with this car. The paint though is very faded especially on the flat areas such as the roof and bonnet. Any recommendations on techniques or products that might help get the shine back? Any thoughts most welcome.

John

[Defender110]

Over to Tim our resident polisher

[jamescarruthers]

G3 paste (not T-cut) and a cheap electric polisher would be my recommendation if it isn't metallic..

The cheap electric ones will do at least one days hard work and have your car looking amazing.

Then many coats of wax to make sure it stays that way... with the polisher if it still works.



I think my polisher was £30 max. I turned a pink car red again and then it blew up just as I finished. Still think this wasn't a bad price for a restored paint job.

If it is metallic, I don't think you can polish it back to life at all as the lacquer must have long departed if it has gone dull. Opinions please, I could be wrong on this matter!

[Tinkley]

There are finer cutting pastes available in the Farecla range (than G3), some more than suitable for metallic paint lacquers. T Cut is OK, a little finer than G3 and there is a 'metallic' version. You can buy foam velcro pads to go onto an attachment to a drill and these work pretty well - cheaper than dedicated polisher!. Just keep the foam a bit wet (dip lightly into bucket and squeeze) or it may overheat the paint and blister it. Note that the pro polishers are half the rpm of the grinders.

If it is dull lacquer it may need re lacquering, my spoiler needs this currently on a Platinum grey car. Also if you repaint anything, most likely the lacquer will be clear but you may need to tweak the colour mix so take the car or a panel to the paint supplier/mixer/ A good one will know how close the 'factory' looks and most likely tweak it to be a better and closer match.

[Thread Bear]

I have a dark graphite TZD. That is lacquered and at 70k miles, garaged, its failing. Its annoying as there is very little wrong with this car. But to take it to top standard it really needs new lacquer, as polishing the surface will only promote the rest to fail earlier. Without knowing what paints they used, I could not comment how easy this is.

On a lot of water based stuff, now cellulose paint is banned, I am told they use cellulose based lacquer coats to seal the crap paint. Be about right for a green answer. Be interesting to know if its true.

I wonder if the dark colour leads to access surface temperature and an early failure of the lacquer. Might be better to spray it over in black and be done with it. Black looks so sinister on the Gti or a well extra packaged TZD, picked out with a bit of coloured trim. Not original though, which this car is 100%, at the moment.

[Tim Leech]

I agree, G3 and a machine polisher is the best way, keep the paint cool and don't press to hard or you will go through or scotch it.

Once done keep polishing it!

[Tinkley]

I have a dark graphite TZD. That is lacquered and at 70k miles, garaged, its failing. Its annoying as there is very little wrong with this car. But to take it to top standard it really needs new lacquer, as polishing the surface will only promote the rest to fail earlier. Without knowing what paints they used, I could not comment how easy this is.

On a lot of water based stuff, now cellulose paint is banned, I am told they use cellulose based lacquer coats to seal the crap paint. Be about right for a green answer. Be interesting to know if its true.

It won't be cellulose, or your car would have turned pretty yellowy........ The BX was the first relatively rust free Citroen - check out the Visa....., had better drain holes and much improved paint system over previous models.

I've used 2k auto paint and 2k epoxy as undercoat/primer on bare metal with no problems on my BX. If there was a compatibility problem it would have peeled off by now. 2k will peel off cellulose and one pack polyurethanes, as well as alkyd based paints. Personally I'd recoat with a clear 2k lacquer, however exactly how one prepares the underlying metallic paint I am less sure of. Originally the metallic coat would have been followed directly with the lacquer ie not rubbed down. The fact it is separately peeling indicates that possibly the overcoat time was exceeded, perhaps too fast drying of the metallic base?

A one pack polyurethane/acrylic will sit on most of the older paint systems without a reaction. As always test first, some reactions are hours and others a few months if you have incompatibility.....

I am not conversant with compatibility of the newer water based paints with these older systems. You can still buy 2k and cellulose AFAIK, though the 'clear' cellulose lacquer is harder to find. I use it on guitars and of course you can re melt it so to speak just with thinners....