ideas for restoring UV-damaged paintwork?

If your paint is weathered as badly as you describe then forget your Mothers and Meguires its time for the Estapol. Horses can walk that that stuff. Apply it with a small roller.

Sounds to me like the car has not had a polish/sealant for quiet some time. Its actually not odd for neglegeted white cars to emit the white pigment as the white car is a base colour and has no clear coat.

Meguairs have some great products and if your going to settle for off the shelf products then that is the way to go. Now depending on how good you want the paint work to look depends on how many steps, but spending about 1 day & a few $$$ can get the car looking good.

First of all, probably use Meguairs Hi-tech Wash or soft wash gel to wash the car. Then use a Clay bar does not matter which brand, this clay bar will remove all bonded contaminants on the paint work, such as industrial fall out, tree sap, brid droppings overspray ete ete, it should make the paint work smooth again. you will need a quick detail spray or car wash mixed with water in a bottle to use it as lubricant then you can use the clay bar on the surface.

You will then need to use meguairs paint cleaner, depending on how bad the paintwork is you might need to use fine cut cleaner, or scratch X before using the paint cleaner.

Then you can top it off with meguairs wet look polymer sealant or NXT generation

OR the 2 step process, mirror glaze Deep cyrystal polish followed by Deep crystal Wax which might be the better option.

They also have a paint subscribition, so you put in all your problems and it will recomend what u need!

Now depending on how much shine you want you can go one step better, and get some Klasse twins ( all in one & sealant glaze) or Menzerna products which you cant get off the shelf and get it from a detailing supplier or online

Menzerna have an intenstive polish that will cure your problems fairly easily

Check

If you keep to once ever 6 months applying a polymer sealer/wax then your paint work should last a little while longer and have a good shine.

keep away from the usual suspects, sellys, turtle wax, nu finish ete ete. Try not to use any of the cutting compounds or cut and polish even though it is easy it will remover a layer of paint and leave swirl marks in your finish if you have any paint afterwoods.

Mothers will also do the trick, its all up to personal preference and how much you are willing to spend.

Good luck and report back if you need any help.

world-wide!

European cars just don't have what it takes for .AU climate. It's interesting to note that Toyotas for example built for Europe and Canada tend to have paint that will outlast the vehicle :-p

Nope, it's stuffed. If you want to learn about this sort of thing, I'd suggest stripping it back (should not be too hard, unless the mess that's on there ATM turns to a "goo" with paint stripper - however never know your luck), then apply 2-pak. It's been a while since I've done this stuff - used to be able to get Dulux mixed as per the car's original colour from your paint shop. Dulux sold to ppg, and I'm not sure it's available to the public now (have not checked).

Note 2 pak (when I used it last) was pretty toxic, so you would want to take proper precautions ... It will outlast the vehicle if applied properly, sticks like s**te to a blanket too.

Dunno if things have changed much, however I'd *never* use an acylic paint on a car, even clear coated....

I'm interested in an update on what's out there these days .... ?

I don't expect a show car quality finish. It's a 22 years old car as it is, so I'm just trying to preserve the paint finish until such time as I'm able to factor in a full and extensive repaint. I'm going to talk to the folks at Saab Serve and get some ideas about good places to handle such a job so I know what will be involved. 8-)

I'm guessing that there isn't any clearcoat left on the original paint. I've never noticed anything 'peeling' off suggesting there even is a clearcoat over the basic white [Saab's 'Cirrus White' going by the plated colour code]. The pigment washing off when wet problem has existed ever since I acquired the car 2 years ago, but it's one of those things that many of us don't worry about until we decide to take our car to a club meeting and want it looking better that it currently does. 8-)

The worst areas are the roof and the boot lid. I've already replaced the bonnet (aka hood) with one from a spare parts car since that had rust problems and the replacement bonnet is metallic blue with a very good paint coating that just needs a wash and a re-wax. The rest of the body which is

The suggestions of certain Meguiars products by a couple of other people (here in the group and privately) to try out sits well with my budget at the moment so that seems like what I will try.

Craig.

Results can vary quite a bit, but generally once things have got to this stage the only real fix is repainting.

If that's not an option, then your best bet is to take the car to a detailer and have them machine cut it, and then give it a good coating that will help protect it with a carnauba based wax. If you're intent on doing it yourself, then you'll need something like a "colour restoring" polish (which is actually a very mild cutting compound) to return the colour to something like it's original condition, and a carnauba wax for further protection.

Follow the product manufactuer's directions, and be prepared to sweat :)

-- Regards, Noddy.

snip

Ok, a solid white is what you've got there I expect Craig, no clear coat is applied. (Clear should only be applied to metallics and pearls over / or in solids.)

A proper cut and polish may be your best bet to start, done with a slow machine (usually around 1500 - 2000 rpm), rubber backing pad, commercial lambswool buff pad (Red Lion or Black Diamond are common brands) . . . I like the B-80's, bonnet style, tie on.

You might be able to hire one, but then you've got to buy a buff pad, heavy polish, and finer hand polish anyway . . .

If you don't have the machine, skills or inclination (!) to machine polish your car, then maybe consider paying a crash shop to do this for you. If you only wanted the roof and boot done, perhaps tops of the quarters and guards, then this should be fairly reasonable, like under $150, expect them to do a nice fine hand polish on the whole car and wash it for that too ! The hand polish gets rid of the buff marks, about the whole job would be about 2 hours work.

Maybe drop into a local crash shop and let someone look at it for you, they won't charge to tell you if they think it's worth trying or not, and hopefully you won't get some shonky bastard trying it on . . . most crashies are pretty decent sorts, although hard slog nowadays with insurance co's (but I digress).

If a cut and polish doesn't remove the uv affected paint and bring up a nice shine, or there is just not enough paint to cope with a good c&p, then repaint is about the only thing that will fix it long term. A proper cut & polish will take about 1/3 of a coat of paint off ! You said the bonnet is a different colour anyway, so obviously some painting is needed sometime in the future anyway, so as you said, you can plan for this.

If the c&p isn't an option for whatever reason . . . I've never used any waxes or polishes, but something that will seal the existing paint is what you're after. Maybe a good heavy real wax product, maybe some of the stuff with the colour in it (is there a white one ?) would help. Suggest getting a few small bottles of different products, and try them out on small areas, and test what works best for your situation.

(The crash shop cut & polish may well be less $ than numerous bottles of products and time etc.)

Cheers, Les

Eww. 8-) Hmm Estapol on a car? on a white car? Somehow I dont think so. lol

Craig.

I didn't think there was any sort of clearcoat as there's no telltale peeling taking place anywhere. I'm concerned that the neglected paintwork is inviting rust so that's another incentive to look after it until I can get a proper repaint done.

Thanks for all your suggestions - I'll track down what's available at the local auto parts stores and go from there.

I figured the trade would have a lot more stuff available that what can be found at retail level. Probably worth checking that out too.

That's about the aim of the exercise - giving the paintwork a very good wash followed by a good seal/wax at regular intervals is where I'm heading. With our water restrictions we can't wash our cars very often (if at all, depending how bad the water shortage gets this coming summer - it's bad now and we're in the middle of a very dry but cold winter) so 6 months betwen full wash/seal/wax cycles seems sensible, with a wash on it's own every couple of months as needed.

My wife was trying to get me to use Turtle Wax but I've resisted as I'm not keen on stuff that is highly abrasive unless there really is a need for it. After all the idea is to *keep* as much of the paint on the car rather than remove a lot of it to get a smooth/shiny finish. 8-)

I'll compare pricing, etc. but with most people I asking saying Meguiars is better I can try their products and if I don't like the results, opt for something else in the future.

Regards,

Craig.