Please HELP Serious "Cross Checking"

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Glowin97x

New member
Well I have been lurking for a while and learning a lot. Hopefully someone can diagnos my problem.

I bought my car used and maybe a year or so years after I got it i started to notice what I call "cross checking" appearing on the hood. I hide it sometimes using Black colored turtle wax, but it only lasts till i strip the wax (plus i hate the wax).



Ok heres a shot of how it looks in normal daylight



13878p1010132.jpg




and heres with a serious flash and some computer enhancement to throw some serious light at it



13878p1010128.jpg




Its not THAT bad in real life but Ive never scratched this hood! Any help?! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASE i cant stand it Please dont mind the dust spots too
 
That looks like clear coat failure .. I did an Explorer like that a couple of months ago .. Same proceedure as you .. Turtle Wax Color Magic wax then topped it
 
I believe the unanimous vote on this one would be major clearcoat failure due to some kind of poor prep or defect. I don't think there's much you can do other than try to hide it or repaint it. The problem is every *cross check* is a crack/split in the clearcoat that probably goes all the way down to the paint, if not farther.



I don't know what kind of damage you would cause by doing this, but mabye polishing a little bit might round off the edges and make a little less noticeable, but I wouldn't go crazy. Definitely do just a very small area and see how it looks.
 
AH freakin Ford Paint Jobs! well i guess the best i can do is try to hide the failure (at least now i know what to call it:rolleyes: ) Any suggestions on how to best hide this beast would be great
 
Well, I have a green 97 Explorer (my daily beater) and it has the same stuff on the hood and roof. I hit it up with the full Einszett polish trio (UPP, PP, MP), then AIO + SG x 2 and it looks great. You can still see them, but nowhere near as bad and extremely shiney. You can actually still see them up close, but at least you can't notice them if you just glance at it now. You may not want to go as aggressive as I did, but I really didn't care. It was such an eyesore that I just had to do something. Actually, a lot of people thought I got it repainted, and then they got up close :)
 
Glowin .. here is the Ford I did .. the hood was the same as yours .. i checked my records and I used DACP on a white pad to take off the tops then TW Color Magic black wax to fill then I topped it with WG a couple weeks later.







DSC00836.jpg
 
If he can make his hood look that good, all I can say is :bow :bow :bow because that's about as perfect as you are ever going to get. Man, this makes me want to buff on mine some more :D
 
:eek: WOW:shocked that looks amazing! I need a PC... if that looked anything like mine did at first, you sir did an AMAZING job
 
I wouldn't attempt this without a PC, that's for sure.



LOL, I wonder how many people are going to think this is before and after pics!
 
I've seen this on a few cars in my work, and in researching it a few years ago I found it can be caused by a few things;



Large and sudden temperature changes such as applying a "hot" or very warm water car wash on the vehicle when the sheet metal was very cold. The paint can't keep up with the expansion and thus checks like that, although it's usually not all the way down to the metal.



Thick paint. When vehicles get repainted a few times, you do reach critical mass as far as how thick in MILs you can go. Usually around 9-10 + mils you start running into issues. This is also exacerbated then by rapid temperature changes which can cause checking faster than thinner paint.





xylene as a component in some solvents has alsp been known to do this to certain paints (gasoline, lacquer thinner contain it as well as many others) but generally I'd fall back on the 1st and 2nd examples which are more common.



I saw it recently on a black 2002 Isuzu SUV I detailed. It came from up north so I would bet someone tried to wash it with hot water in the dead of winter, just a guess though. I made sure I showed it to the customer just in case they hadn't noticed it, prior to my starting on the truck. You've always got to cover yourself these days as we all know. :)
 
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