Washed the car yesterday and it drives me crazy. Scratch here, scratch there.

The paint is so freakin' thin.

A fly can scratch the paint.

Absolutely ridiculious.

 

I agree!!!

 

For the life of me I can not figure out how this is happening.

Yes, rocks and stuff hit the front, but little scratches on the back and sides?

I haven't even hit 4500 miles yet and the car is never parked next to another car.

AAAACCCCKKKKKK!!!

 

i havent ordered mine yet but this is very disguraging. i hate to have scratches or chips in my paint. makes me wonder if i should get one

 

agreed. I've ALWAYS used Microfiber wrags when washing and detailing the car, and even i have a swirl here and a swirl there.

 

oh, and 1 or 2 road rashes on the front lip from rocks, yay

 

i drove my '04 thundercloud for 22,000 miles without a scratch. the front was destroyed from rocks though.

 

This paint is like other paints on Toyota's right? It's a Toyota, right? It's an industry standard paint, yes? So far as I know it is a base coat/clear coat catalyzed polyurethane paint.

A paint can be tough or it can be very hard. A tough paint tends to elastiscity and chip resistance. A very hard paint will better resist scratching by grit in the cleaning rag; but -not by much- because silica is what's scratching your paints. Silica is harder than any paint I know about. Silica is harder than window glass, even.

So! Microfiber cloth or not, we must guard against grit on our washing cloth. We must spray the surface with copious clear water and -not use- the same rag on the rocker panels as we use on the body panels.

Light colors like white and yellow are more forgiving of scratches and black is the opposite: it shows all.

I have no swirls on my car yet that I've noticed. I have a minor lip scrape is all. The roadways here are not infested with thrown rocks. That helps.

Rocks that break windshields can also be expected to pockmark paint. We all know this.

Rinse your microfiber cloth in a five gallon pail of clear water as you wash and use a hose to flood the surface and the rag and -wipe very lightly- the first pass over until you're sure you have all the bits of sand off the car. The roof rubber strips may hold hidden grit that your cloth will drag out.

After the car is sure and certainly grit-free use a known-clean mictrofiber cloth and plenty of soap (it is a lubricant as well as a surfactant) to remove the stubborn spots.

Always remember that bird stains contain sand because birds eat gravel by which to grind their food. Remove bird droppings without rubbing insofar as possible and always use a flood of water.

I think the paint on my car is just fine. Clearly, your results may vary. Again, if the paint were formumated very soft then it would not stone chip so much. Old time varnish paints were that way. So were alkyd enamels pretty good about stone resistance. Modern paints tend to be much harder and are overall superior. But! Even glass can be scratched by grit. And -no paint- is as hard as glass, now is it?

I say the guilt is in your dirty ragging. Not Toyota's high-tech paint chemistry.

Thin is -good-. Thick, hard paint like this would chip WORSE, believe me. Or would you rather have soft, soft paint that does not chip but does swirl mark if you rub it the least bit wrong?



I like to apply the car soap with a spray bottle. I like to wet the car down, soap it and let it set for a while to soften the grime and loosen the mud.

=sidebar: How well I recall the old single-coat paints (pre-'85). Acrylic Enamels were quite good, most of them but! If a bird stain lay on the paint for a few days you had a pit mark. You'd have to compound down to get the gloss back. We'd wax and polish our cars until the paint wore down to the primer. This had to be done frequently and paint jobs left outdoors were generally shot in two or four years max.

Today's paints are entirely different in chemistry and longevity in the punishing outdoor environment.

 

SciFLY is 100 % correct. Also the products that you use will maintain or mess up your finish. Look at tropicare products. They are formulated for show cars, thus the best results.

 

look into Klasse All in One and Klasse Sealant glaze. when i get a new car, i wash and then go over the paint with the Klasse products. best paint protection i've ever used. and the best part is, you only need to use it once every 6 months. you can apply your favorite wax afterwards if the sealant glaze doesn't leave enough shine for you (doubtful).

 

I've had my xB for a year in november and I have no complaints with the paint. your clearcoat will take a few months to completely set.

 

good tip does this harden your paint for prevention of rocks?

 

i know what you mean

 

it wont prevent rock chips like a clear bra will, but the sealant glaze basically adds an acrylic on top of your clear coat so its harder to scratch.

 

No complaints here. I need to get some factory touch up paint for where I left a few minute scratches from debadging in the rear.

 

I have never had to pay this much attention to trying to keep it looking good.

I've had the car since 11/04. Less than 4500 miles. Breaks my heart to see these scratches.

Toyota has done a real poor job with this car in the paint department.

I've bought every type of high end was/ polish/ wax. Overspent on microfibers, etc. It comes a point where Toyota is the one who did a real crap job. How 'bout another coat of clear coat Toyota? Huh?!>!

I've owned everything from 1967 Shelby GT500 to a 1988 Pontiac Trans Am and NONE had this problem.

Maybe it is time to go back to american made, as this is my first Japanese.

 

Paper Machet, that what the paint is equivalent to.

Sorry for the venting....

 

Scifly, have you inspected very closely ur paint around the direct reflection of the sun? The only swirls i do see are ONLY visible when doing this. Otherwise i am scratch free.

 

I bought a colgan customs bra and my front end looks brand new when im doin city driving. Anything highway-ish over 30 miles gets the bra treatment and it keeps all the bugs outta my rad. also. 135 bucks I think.

 

Yes. Also I don't wash or wax the car very often. I don't much believe in waxing products except for special occasions and for when I feel like babying the paint to make -me- feel better.

The less often you wipe down the car the less risk of microscratches. I hose her down a lot and the car has never been under cover except for maybe six nights. It's out in the sun all day until I get my garage better organized.

My only worry is the UV aging out the clear coat. This -should- require at least five years Florida outdoor exposure. Our climate is the death-standard for paints because of our sunshine levels.

If we read the owner's manual we see that Toyota makes no big whoop about waxing. I like a freshly waxed car for the easier cleaning. Many auto soaps seem to leave a bit of lubricating wax or silicone on the finish and this does help the next washing.

I have not investigated the higher end products that put a so-termed "seal" coat of acrylic or whatever onto the paint. So I don't know it all about paints.

I do know that 99 percent of these waxes, polishes and even some of the Scratch-Out type of repair polishes contain silicones. Silcones are giant inorganic molecules which flow and fill micro pores and scracthes and so, give greater slickness to the paint finish. But do they shield against UV? I don't see much evidence that constant polishing with the so-termed "cleaner-polishes" does much more than thin down the vital clear coat.

Safe for clearcoat of course are the -purely waxlike- finishes that contain zero polishing abrasives no matter how fine- . If you wax frequently use these in pref to any sort of cleaner/wax.

All of the UV resistance these days is engineered into the clear coats. A couple mils of clear coat with integral UV blockers seems to me to be about a thousand times thicker than any UV-protectant auto polish. Again, I don't know the latest high-tech wax technology.

I would Simonize if only I could find an can that hasn't dried out from sitting on the shelf too long.

Astro Glaze! Who recalls Astro Glaze! ( I may have mangled the name) So much hype has been heaped into wax products since 1919 that I thing the Gov. oughta require disclosure by weight of the components in auto shine products. They oughta list up the precentages of H2O, aliphatic hydrocarbons, natural waxes and silcones and most important: The B.S. content!