My car has freckles in the clear coat. Kinda like a bunch of mini craters. They don't catch on my fingernail or anything like that. It almost looks like I've got a dull metallic paint, although my paint is non metallic. I've got a photo, but it isn't too great to show the freckles. You can kinda see them around the sunlight spot. I took the photo through my sunglasses to reduce the glare.

 

I can't see it very well but it could be clear coat failure.

 

TopHatChef, would love to help you out on this one, but the photo has too much going on....see if you can take some direct shots using artificial lighting. Are the marks circular or are they like fine checks or cracks?

 

So sorry it took me so long to reply to my OWN thread. For some reason, I seem to have forgotten about it. I just waxed the car today, and took some more pictures with the flash of my camera. The ones with the flash light didn't turn out too well.

You can see the freckles around the light source in this photo, although they are mostly uniform through the surface of the paint.




The marks are small little indents, not circular or like swirl marks in any way. They are kinda like blackheads. I only notice them on the hood and trunk lids. I cannot say much for the roof since the clear coat is failing there (the hood and trunk don't look like clear coat failure at all).

Note: the paint is not metallic.

 

TopHatChef,

Those pock marks could be from contaminants that settled on the finish for long periods of time. Contaminants such as fallout when not removed quickly cause the indents or pock marks that you see. In some cases these pock marks are also solvent pop, caused from repainting. In would suggest someone take a paint gauge meter to your paint and get a reading. Then it would be easier to determine the best way to correct your paints damage based on overall paint thickness...

 

Alright, thanks. I suppose a previous owner could have left the car for awhile uncleaned. From what I know, the car hasn't been repainted except for the front bumper (it was in a minor crash from a previous owner). I am having some paint work done this weekend (hopefully), so I'll see if they can measure how thick the clear coat is. Even if it's plenty thick to wet sand it, I may leave it since I'm not confident enough to take on that endeavor.

 

I would try a chemical paint cleaner and/or detailers clay

 

I've already clayed the car several times since I've owned it, and it hasn't seen to have done much. Do you know of any specific chemical paint cleaner I could use?

 

This type of paint condition will not be corrected by claying or by using any sort of paint cleaner. The only way is to level it out by either color sanding or by means of a rotary buffer. But as mentioned in my previous post, you should measure the thickness of the material before taking this approach.

 

I had a feeling that would be the case. Right now, it doesn't bother me much, so I'll just leave it be.