Finding some odd looking scratches on my bonnet and trunk. A detail guy looked said it might be clear coat cracking from the overheating problem I’ve had. He asked does Jaguar have heavy or light clear coat, I had no idea what he was taking about. Does Jag have a heavy or light or thin or thick clear coat?

Thanks in advance, always get some great answers from this form.

 

Captain Bob,

I've not heard before of the concept of "heavy coat" or light coat" when it comes to lacquer. But the minor gauge fluctuation that you had on your 4 litre will have had no effect on your paint. You would have to have a fire in the engine bay of your 4 litre before it would affect the paint on your bonnet. The underbonnet temperatures of a V12 XJS are way in excess of anything you will have seen on your 4 litre.

So rest easy and perhaps consider using a mild cutting compound to see if you can improve any paint scratches.

Paul

 

No such thing - flim flam - there are medium solids, high solids, ultra high solids and a couple of others but these tend to roll up in these three (such as scratch resistance). When it comes to application there are normal and wet coats (really just more material laid down), fast and slow curing.

- heavy and light - nope.

Ask him to define the terms as he may be thinking something else.

My experience of the clear coat on mine is that it is quite soft - but hard and soft gets into an entirely different debate

 

Thanks I will ask him again about hard or soft, once again I don’t understand that if you would like to give me some schooling. Thanks

 

The hardness of the clear or paint finish is what I mean by hard or soft, it generally depends on the materials aka the manufacturer the hardness being a measure of how likely it will scratch - note I'm not talking paint manufacturer here but the auto manufacturer as they tend to blend their own mixes in the factory - they don't send out for a tanker truck from the nearest factors.A hard coat has its downsides as it will tend to chip and isn't quite so resilient to projectile damage but it is far more forgiving of lazy wash practices - that doesn't mean it is not going to scratch. Softer paints you can scratch with a fingernail - check out around the handle on some car doors.

If you go seek out some of the detailing forums you will find comments made about hard paint, I put a link below, it lists Jaguar as an intermediate but I'd take that with a pinch of salt on our older cars.

How Hard

If I'm looking for a high gloss and hard finish I'd be looking for ultra high solids and 'anti scratch' - basically it is a kind of epoxy - you would throw on a normal first pass, let it flash off then hit it with a heavy 'wet; coat so that it flows out - the normal coat acts as a foundation and a key or you can end up with rivers running off the panel - spraying clear can be very challenging especially if doing it in less than ideal conditions.

 

Thanks very much very educational. Looks like Jaguar come in intermediate in softness or hardness.
👍

 

Post pics when it comes to things that are visually available. These descriptions are never good enough for me. Show me what you’re talking about. Its 2022 and loading up a pic is as easy as ordering a meal, weed, alcohol, blow, and some roses for the wife. I have nothing else to add, except for I think your paint is crazing beneath the clear due to excessive heat exposure. Post a pic or two please.

 

Usually the clear coat turns white and blows away as dust before the basecoat has any issues. That’s what happened to my ‘95 anyway. Car never stopped running at 200k, it just got too ugly to drive. Used to be cheaper to buy another XJS than it was to paint one. Oh well couldnt’ answer question but clear coat failure happens on 95 XJSs, happened to me.

 

For comparison, my 2021 Tesla has the worst paint job you can imagine, I would bet a 1985 Yugo is better. My 1994 XJS has about the best paint I've ever seen, tough as nails.

 

Not possible.

How do you take a picture of the hardness of diamond - same goes for paint. If you see a scratch what does it prove - without the context of what caused the scratch it means nothing.

In terms of normal coats and wet coats a picture won't show a lot of difference - there are some things that only experience will show - same as the paint job on a car that looks great in photos but not so good from less than 2 yards.

All things are not equal, not all the differences can be seen in a picture.

 

Car is in the shop, should have it back this week and will do some pics.
Thanks

 

Did you find out what heavy / light meant - I'm curious -

 

Have to zoom in and they look like a V or a Y There are maybe 12 of these marks on the bonnet.

 

How widespread is that or are they the only places you see this, this looks like a defect in the paint job - too much clear laid down too fast, poor mixing of a 2k clear, insufficient curing of the basecoat to name some - so has this car seen paint at any time ?

Have you seen it getting worse ?

It depends how widespread and how deep it goes but that is a more challenging long term fix than it would appear - typically locallised repair on paint that has started doing this is a short term fix but it depends on the cause and you can only suppose so much from a picture, you could maybe do a micro repair - same sort of thing the chip repair people do - and it could be good for years - it equally may not, I'm guessing the white appearance is caused by a car polish of some sort.

 

Car had never been refinished that I can see. Its possible the bonnet was painted but I doubt it. There are maybe dozen spots all look the same.

 

Is it confined to the bonnet ?

 

Yes it is.

 

Does sound like it has seen paint - depends how thoroughly it was masked as to how easy it will be to figure that out - may need the grille removed - but that may have been removed.

Thought you had this scheduled for the paint shop - what happened?

 

Had an alternator go, just got it back, now appear clutch fan is bad running hot all day. Of course it’s Been 100 degrees this week. Will try and get to paint shop next week.
Thanks very much.

 

Before I had my Green car repainted, I was getting paint craze on the hood and trunk panels. Then, eventually, the drivers side fender started crazing.

$2,000 later I got a hell of deal from a guy who did an outstanding job fixing up the body panels, and an average job on the paint. For the price, I feel I got better than I paid.