Just got back in town and what started out to be a re spray with some dent and ding repair and some crazing on the front fenders has turned into a nightmare!!
My body shop guy has found the crazing in several more spots. It was primarily on the front hood and fenders. But he also found it on the nose and boot lid.
It's now been totally taken to bare metal and new primer. $$$$$
What's the deal with the crazing. I had a 2002 X type a few years ago that had the exact same issue! And it was black too.
I'm wondering ho many other jaguars have the same issues.
On a good note, I saw the paint in person finally. A test piece. It's the richest black metallic I've ever seen. In the sun it looks like black diamonds and in the shade, it's just black. I think I chose well!!
A few pics in the process!! He's planning on having it finished next Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

Had to post this so I could remember what I started with!! I miss my car!!!

 

Hey Phil--glad you decided to stay in the country

Anyway the paint on my 2005 is still virtually perfect and seems much more robust than previous cars I have owned. The only problem spot has been the front bumper where some of the clear coat has flaked off. I suspect that there was a respray of the bumper by the previous owner and the application of the clear coat was not done as well as it could have been. It is not all that noticeable since it is low and right in front of the passenger side wheel so I have been ignoring it.

Doug

 

I have a very small amount of crazing on my bonnet and one front wing and yes, my car is black (2001). I had wondered whether it was the result of a previous repair, but when XKRacer had a look over my car when I first got it, he identified some repair work at the rear, but reckoned the front was untouched.

 

I have two quarter-sized areas on the rear (vertical section under the trunk lid). Mine is the dark pacific blue for what it's worth. None anywhere else and it doesn't seem to be spreading.

 

crazing/ cracking is a pain in the ***.
Almost all of the time you have to sand the surface bare and prime over it.
If you try any short cuts it usually ends up finding its way past the new clear after a few days.
Your painter did the right thing.

The crazing means that the products expand and contract at different rates and over time cause cracks in your finish.
Which means your car has been resprayed before and whoever did it saved a lot of money and time by not sanding to the bare surface.
This doesn't mean whoever worked on your car before is a crap shop. It just means the previous owner did not want to pay for the extra work.

To be honest most of the time you can get away with not sanding to bare metal it all depends on the year and what the car has gone through before.

Painting is just chemistry class all over again except sometimes it turns into a guessing game as to the products previously used on the car.

Can't wait to see the finished product!

 

I was discussing paint with asupplier recently and he told me that the primer, basecoat and clear coat for bumpers is more flexible than that for sheet metal. But that doesn't explain the problem you guys are seeing. If your cars are repaints, that would be different. All bets are off then.

 

My 2002 XKR which had virtually all original paint until about 3 weeks ago when I had the front clip resprayed due to 130,000 miles worth of road rash has had no crazing or cracking, and the original paint on everything but the front looks virtually new as I had the whole car wet sanded after the front clip was painted. Where I had this type of situation was with my Pantera where the paint from 1972 would not prime properly and when I had the car repainted when I got 7-8 years ago, it kept cracking and peeling. Bare metal sanding seems to be the only solution to this. However, I would bet that the crazing or cracking that appears on some of our cars is due to previous repair work and shortcuts taken at the time that body work or paint work was done. Otherwise it would probably appear evenly all over the car.

 

So Phil, what colour did you finally decide to pain the car? I'm betting it's going to look real sweet when it's done!

Now this is starting to scare me guys. You're saying that crazing and cracking is due to bad previous repair work. So, I'm guessing my car went through a doozie... Ugh, I'd hate to think my car was involved in a big accident.

Phil, I've never seen a picture of your car where the paint looks bad, so I have to ask, what do you mean by crazing? Did it look like this?





This is the reason I never take pictures of the passenger side of my car. Now, my boot lid is starting to craze a little, but it hasn't lost the clear coat like in these pics. It just is starting to look like it has spider webs.

 

I've done some research and found that there was a problem with the black paint on several jaguar models in the 2001-2004 cars. It's something to do between the primer and the paint. Oddly enough it's usually confined to the front end of the car but its now showing up on areas further back. When he sanded down to the primer, it still showed the hair like cracks in that layer as well. Possibly due to the heat.
Now that mine is bare metal paint job, I hopefully have cleaned up the factory issues. I also found it was also an issue with ford cars in Europe as well. But only black!
If you see fine hair like cracks in the paint, it's gonna get worse!! My right fender looked like a short haired dog had shed on it, my bonnet and left fender only had scattered cracks. But once sanded down to the primer, the cracks were even, just not through the paint yet.
I called my dealer and he said they know about the issue. But of course it didnt show itself until years later.
So, if you have a black car in those years, you've got a 50/50 chance it's gonna happen!!

 

Nope, that's a clear coat failure. Much easier to deal with. Sort of. It can be sanded down to the color, then re painted. Mine looked like 1" hairs all over as if a dog shed on it. If I used black wax, it minimized the damage, but in the sun, it was visible. Mine was all the way down to the primer.
Believe me, those that have this issue know exactly what I'm talking about. I wish it was a clear coat failure.

 

This is what it looks like. If I used black wax, it filled cracks and only the sun showed the cracks. This pic is taken after washed, still wet, no wax.

 

So a clear coat failure... Why does that happen?

Phil, what about this on my boot; what is it?

 

Holy crap Phil, that looks real bad.

So, what's the recommended procedure with a clear coat failure? And why does it happen?

 

If its on the metal, maybe. If its on the urethane bumper, it's probably a stress bump. That's what happened on my front nose. This definitely looks like fine hairs, starts like single hair cracks, then oddly enough becomes a Y shape, then they start connecting.
I've only found info on the black paint. No other colors. And almost always on the front fenders and bonnet/hood.

 

Ok. I'm actually calling my brother on this!! He used to paint cars.
He says either they didn't wet sand enough and clean residue before clear coating, or there was some contaminant between color and clear, or the last possibility is that they used a not compatible clear coat for the base color.
Every layer of paint depends on the final prep of the previous coat.
If someone like Maaco does a 99.00 bumper repaint, they do the least amount of work, and usually it looks good for a year or so, then it will start to fail. He says "you get what you pay for!"

 

Here's a sample of my actual paint! And this is just with a spot light in my house. He just sprayed the front bonnet and bumpers so i had him spray an old XJS headlight trim piece. In the sun it explodes! It's really subtle but I think it's totally unique. I've never seen a true black metallic XK8. It's a little warm black in the sun so I think it's going to be awesome!!