What kind of paint defects are these?

Steve530

New member
Original black paint on a '98 Subaru Outback. Defects are not paint chips and they appear only on the hood, so I ruled out hail.



Each defect appear to be small cracks in the clearcoat originating from a central point. It looks as if the clearcoat just bubbled up and cracked.



Anyone seen this before? Will I be able to remove these with a PC and 3M FI2?
 
Once your clear coat cracks thats it . You could probably sand the area and touch it up . Post some pics if you can . Good luck
 
Depending on how severe, wetsanding will get those outs. Its hard to tell without pics but, sounds to me like isolated area of clear coat failure. It looks like tiny (usually white i believe) hairline cracks/spider webbing. Has your hood ever been repainted?
 
Thanks for the replies.



Sorry the camera is packed for a trip, so I can't post pics. The hood has never been repainted.



These things are about the same size as a stone chip, but don't look like stone chips. They don't seem to penetrate the color coat at all. Just small points with lines radiating out about 1/8 inch in diameter. Strange that these are only on the hood.



I did use a PC with some AIO. That made them less noticeable. I'll try a little abrasive polish on the hood when it warms up, see if that helps.
 
A guy I worked with had that same problem all over his hood. It's all the clear coat cracking. Probably going to have to sand it off and re-clear coat it.

Especially when the clear coats gone there's no protection and it's going to be very obviouse if you remove the clear coat.
 
Thanks for the information, Audipower.



It's limited to 8 or 10 spots at the moment, so I'll see what the PC can do with some FI2 Machine Polish.



Sounds like I'll have to have the hood re-painted sooner or later.
 
does it look like this??



5571img_0529.jpg




5571img_0528.jpg




The pictures are from JDookie
 
holland_patrick, those are some pretty graphic pics. question for you. Although there can be many reasons for this problem, what would everybody feel as the common reason for this defect ?

I am curious as to what everyone feels the primary reason was. Guess I will have to show that pic to my friend who is the manager of a very reputable body repair shop. like to get his take on it. he has shown and told me some real horror stories, he has seen just about everything. thanks for the pics
 
I have seen this many many times if what holland_patrick posted is what you are experiencing. Aside from not being painted properly, this can happen from the paint expanding and contracting due to temperature fluctuations. The paint will basically expand and contract until it simply "fractures" and the small cracks appear. I used to see this all the time on Jeep Cherokees and that was the explanation of why it was happening I got from PPG and BASF.
 
Might be the above result. I have it on my mustang after many years. Clearcoat failure after TONS of beatings. I guess the best way is to repaint?
 
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