Audi Paint : your views...

M

mikeinaustin

New member
Simple question really. Thinking of getting an audi later this year, leaning toward their brilliant red or brilliant black (car will be an a5) colors.



What are your experiences with audi paint? hard/soft? chip easy or no? swirl easy or not?
 
I detailed two audi's in the past two weeks, both Brilliant Black(or whatever the real name is).



Both had moderately hard clears.



2002 Audi TT w/around 98K miles on it;

tons of chips and clear cote failure in multiple places, I had to use M105 and a LC purple wool pad to even get some bite, and even with that, It needed multiple passes in some places.



2008 Audi S4 Wagon w/around 17K miles on it;

already showing signs of chipping in the front from rocks etc.. paint was ROCK HARD but I only preformed a "one step" machine polish on it. had a TON of swirls(still has a lot because of the ROCK HARD clear) from car washes(guess).



thats my take.. hope it helps. if you have any other questions feel free.
 
its very hard IMHO but its the paint i learned on and still to this day do most of. I have to use yellow pad some of the times, due to the fact a orange lc pad 80% of the time wont get alot of swirls out. i find it easy with a pc and menz SIP then Nano.



oh and it chips very easy, my passat has tons on a new front end and i stay 2-3 car lengths behind cars on the highway and never behind trucks... that says alot.
 
My 2000 lt silver metallic is very hard, and does have some chips. It doesn't swirl much at all, but it takes SIP+Flex+orange pad sometimes multiple tries to get out deeper swirls. It is so good about marring, though, I think I could go 3-4 years without polishing. I prefer this to the softer clears that have get polished twice a year...
 
I have no idea whether today's Audis have the same stuff as our '00/'01, but I too simply love the hard clear on ours. Fairly thick too. Chip-resistance is OK but hard paint often seems to chip more readily than softer paint does.



BUT...the hard clear won't save you from wash-induced marring. I get new Audis as service loaners (and see them in the showroom) and they always look terrible. The prep guys at my dealer aren't all *that* bad, but *one* wash and a brand new car looks like a horror-show IMO.



A friend of mine just bought an '07 (or is it an '08 :think: ) in black, and it's simply AWFUL. Totally marred up and that's after his dealer tried to prep it for sale.



So..unless you can wash marring-free, and also correct hard clear, I sure wouldn't buy a nonmetallic red/black one. If you can usually go a year or so without polishing and/or correct hard paint without any problems, then sure...but it's still gonna be a part-time job IMO. I'm pretty good at this stuff, and there's NO WAY I'd buy one in those colors. Yeah, I'm a wet blanket but how much time do you really want to spend on this stuff?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top