It finally happened! Clearcoat strike through!

[hemi1300]

Not very happy. Have tried to remove a bird etching spot dead center of the hood on my 14 ram laramie. Have gone over it a few times with rupes mini and Mark 2, while it improved, still there. Many suggested wet sanding, but wasn't comfortable going this route. Got the adams blue heavy correcting Polish with microfiber pad today and figured I would give it a shot. After 1 pass, was impressed as it looked quite a bit better. Figured 1 more pass and it should be good, couldn't be more wrong! Now have a quarter sized spot on the hood that is dull and rough to the touch. Can't believe I did this to my new $40k truck! Any advice from this point? I'm sure the only option if I want it fixed is respray the hood with clear, in that case I will just live with it and accept I made a big mistake

[hemi1300]

Here's a pic, kind of hard to see though

[tbarn]

I'm not a body guy but from my understanding, clear coat needs to be put down over a fresh color coat. The color coat will still be slightly wet/tacky when the clear is applied. Chemical bond. But fell free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[hemi1300]

Stupid question, but would using one of the clearcoat pens/brushes from scratch/chip repair kits be worth a shot to give the spot some shine back, or would it just make matters worse and more noticeable? Trying to figure out if anything can improve it a bit without a repaint

[hemi1300]

Here are a few more pics to show what i'm dealing with. Pretty noticeable under my high output fluorescent garage lighting, but hopefully not too noticeable once the truck is out in the sun or it's gonna drive me mad

[shane@detailedreflections]

Food for thought what would happen if you put a ceramic coating on? Would that make it less noticeable and acceptable? I don't know the answer to that one.

 

Seeing things like this though reinforce that I made a good decision in investing in a coating thickness meter. Repeated measurements can help prevent these incidents.

 

Hopefully you can make it acceptable or get a reasonable quote for repair from a body shop. Best of luck.

[hemi1300]

Food for thought what would happen if you put a ceramic coating on? Would that make it less noticeable and acceptable? I don't know the answer to that one.

 

Seeing things like this though reinforce that I made a good decision in investing in a coating thickness meter. Repeated measurements can help prevent these incidents.

 

Hopefully you can make it acceptable or get a reasonable quote for repair from a body shop. Best of luck.

This was another thought I had, would the ceramic coating help this? Really looking for some advice on anything I can do to improve my stupid mistake. Should have trusted my gut and accepted that the bird etching spot wasn't getting any better and left it alone

[shane@detailedreflections]

I don't know if it would or not. I was more or less thinking out loud. If you did coat it, you'd have to let it wear off naturally since you wouldn't want to take a polisher to that area again. And you'd pretty much have to keep on top of making sure that the area stayed coated regularly. Not that that's the end of the world. Just changes maintenance a little bit.

 

I think it may be a suitable alternative.

[DREWBUSH]

What size pad were you using? Also was it on the mini? or the Bigfoot? 

[LFairbanks]

You will have to have the whole hood repainted and cleared.  My guess would be under $1000.  Paint labor is relatively cheap.  It is body work that is expensive.  Had my roof repainted under manufacturer warranty and I want to say it was $1700.  But there were things that had to be removed and masked along with blending.  A hood is straight forward.  

[shane@detailedreflections]

On the 14th of January I have a ceramic installation I'm doing. I'm going to take measurements along the way of coating thickness at varying steps of the progress to see what comes off and goes on with each layer. I'll be happy to report back and it'll give you an idea of what each coating layer provides? It may bring back the gloss look.

 

Or the true correct (best?) way to repair it is with a body shop repainting it.

[Mariner]

The Adams Heavy Correcting Polish burned through your clear coat?

[hemi1300]

What size pad were you using? Also was it on the mini? or the Bigfoot?

Tried to correct it with the mini and Bigfoot Mark 2 using microfiber pads on both with correcting Polish. Final attempt that burnt through the clear was with the mark 2 heavy correcting compound

[hemi1300]

The Adams Heavy Correcting Polish burned through your clear coat?

Yes

[hemi1300]

Really hoping someone from adams will give some advice soon. The only 2 options I can think of to try at this point is the paint coating, which I can take advantage of the sale going on, and my other thought is a clear coat pen used in deep scratch repair kits to lightly color over the damage-not sure if this would be a good idea though

[hemi1300]

Still shocked that bird etching ate that far through the clear. I have polished a few scratches before, that didn't go through the clear, and couldn't get them completely removed but much less visible to the naked eye and called it quits before I got carried away. Glad I didn't wet sand it, as recommended by a few on this forum, bc I would have had much worse damage than I have already done

[GXPaycheck]

Find a good body shop to fix it. You won't be satisfied with anything less.

[hemi1300]

Find a good body shop to fix it. You won't be satisfied with anything less.

Not willing to go this route yet. Not only do I not want to fork out $1k to have it repainted, I have had vehicles repainted in the past and I could always tell where the damage was and the paint started peeling a few years later

[LFairbanks]

Not willing to go this route yet. Not only do I not want to fork out $1k to have it repainted, I have had vehicles repainted in the past and I could always tell where the damage was and the paint started peeling a few years later

 

 

That is because they didn't do it right.  Find a body shop that knows what they are doing and you won't have any problems.

[LT1xL82]

That is because they didn't do it right.  Find a body shop that knows what they are doing and you won't have any problems.

 

Good body shops exist...but sadly they are seriously out numbered by shops that do lousy work!

 

Personally, I'll never again use a shop that does primarily collision repair. 

 

Get references from car enthusiasts and folks that have had paint work done to a valuable/specialty/collector car. The right shop can easily repair the damage on your vehicle.

[2quikta]

I thought it was next to impossible to burn through with a DA. On such a new car on a spot that isn't on a body line/etc. I would believe this is something else. At any point that you would be pushing the polisher down with enough pressure, they would have stopped spinning/cutting.

[butters]

Sorry about the damage, I'm sure we can all feel your pain.

 

Regarding your question about factory touchup, I can't say for sure whether it would work BUT it might be worth a shot. The Langka blob eliminator levels off that OEM touchup by gradually removing it as it's rubbed across the spot, so you could play with it and not risk any bad results since it becomes reversible. I've tried it with very fine scratches and it pulled all the touchup out - bummer, but goes to show how effective it can be. Good luck!

Edited December 31, 2016 by butters

[hemi1300]

Sorry about the damage, I'm sure we can all feel your pain.

 

Regarding your question about factory touchup, I can't say for sure whether it would work BUT it might be worth a shot. The Langka blob eliminator levels off that OEM touchup by gradually removing it as it's rubbed across the spot, so you could play with it and not risk any bad results since it becomes reversible. I've tried it with very fine scratches and it pulled all the touchup out - bummer, but goes to show how effective it can be. Good luck!

Interesting, never heard of this blob eliminator, may be worth a shot. Does anyone have advice if adams paint coating would be a good idea and maybe improve the look a bit? Only thing that worries me is if I mess up the application or makes it look worse then I would have to machine Polish it off and cause more problems

[hemi1300]

Decided not to have a body shop look at it. It will drive me nuts every time I look at it, but had the truck out today in the sun and it is very hard to see unless you're looking for it. Under my high intensity lights in the garage it is pretty noticeable though

[ocdrifter]

I swear I posted on this post before suggesting for you to leave it be, somewhere somehow my post was deleted.

 

Since I advised leaving it be and everyone else said go for it, I guess I was right.

 

Now for round two. There are people that know how to touch up paint or fix paint defects. Most cars from the factory have paint defects and all they do is spot sand them and and repaint that area. My truck had a spot sanded when it was new 10 years ago that I had touched up, you can't even tell they fixed that area, I don't know where you live but maybe there is someone in your area that has this ability to repaint that area at a minimal cost.

 

These are the people I have used.

http://www.colorsonparade.com

 

Good Luck

[tbarn]

We have people come to our lot to repair nicks and scratches. Mostly use air brushes. Was never sure how long these repairs would hold up.