Howdy, New member here so forgive the blunders!!!!!

Owner of a Back 2001 , June of 2001 which has an annoying feature. Let me explain; after washing and waxing the car I am amazed how she shines, the finish is pretty. But Looking closer in direct sunlight the paint seems to have a galaxy of stars, visible; black paint, white specks.
Now I thouht it was dust, not the case, white paint overspray, not the case , top surfaces only?again not the case.
Still puzzled I took out my tusty 8X magnifier and looked closer.

What I think I see is small pits in the surface which hold the now dried and white as snow wax beneath the buffing depth, that is the terry cloth towle will not remove it.

Now my neighbors tell me I''ve got too much time on my hands to notice and then wonder about such things but I'm convinced this may be a paint surface problem.

Any others who've noticed this? Is the S2000 a clear coat finished car? Do I have too much time on my hands????

Thanks

 

Ahhh... The life of owning a black car...
Couple of thoughts:
Sounds like you have some bad paint swirls ?
Sounds like your car might have been waxed with one of the marketed "glass" polishes ?
Might it be you're not using an USA 100% cotton towel when trying off, thus microscopically putting more scracthes in the finish ?

Check out the some other posts about regarding waxing, polishing, etc... You can learn a lot. Start by letting your car get rained on (since there are naturally-occuring solvents in rain that will break down wax), wash your car a few times with Palmolive or some other cheap dishwashing soap equivalent, hook yourself up with some good clay bars (Zaino comes to mind), and try to remove these deposits by "claying" it. A lot of work, trust me... Then if that works, you have to have a good polish on there to keep it nice...

If this sounds like a like a work and you have a couple hundred bucks, take it to a reputable paint shop and see if they will wet-sand it, which can work wonders on black cars...

Either way, it takes a lot of maintenace, and good products (check out the Zaino product lines) to keep your finish looking good...

good luck...

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ricklobo
[B]Ahhh... The life of owning a black car...

 

my black car was perfect until the dealer "detailed" it. Now I have crazy swirls in it where my car looks HORRIBLE. My car is less than a month old too. Dammit.

 

Thanks for the info, I'll look into the products and proceedures recomended.

But I'm not sure it's the situation, i.e. swirls or wax build up. I'm concerned that the paint surface on the car may not be smooth, can this be?

I'm wondering if its a 'clear coated' finish? If maybe I should raise this issue with the dealer?

Thanks in advance.

Al

 

Al, yes, the S2000 has a clear coat finish (to answer your question).

Black is the hardest color to maintain, bar none. My S is black casue that's what they
had in stock when I walked in to the showroom and drove it home 45 minutes later

I swore I'd never own another black vehicle, but ummm...I was weak!

I'd follow the recommendations to clay the car and then see how it feels.
The clay bar will pull contaminants out of the paint (like your wax leftovers)
and then you can better assess the condition of the underlying clear coat.
If it is indeed not smooth, you might want to talk to the dealer about it
but I'd be mroe inclined to take it to a reputable body shop and have them
wet sand/polish it and then apply some of the Zaino products to protect the
new finish.

Good luck!

 

The S2000 is hand painted, if you look close enough you can see the scuff marks from the D/A. Unfortunatly the paint is very thin and can be damages very easily. I am a estimator at a auto body shop and I think theres nothing you can do about it ( except repainting the car ). Thats one of the things about black cars. I think its the best color but its also the hardest to maintain. Running your fingers through a black car can scratch it. Just keep it waxed and clean and thats the best you can do.

 

I don't think so.

 

Not hand-painted... The last time I saw clips from the factory floor, they had robotic arms seemlessly coating our cars...

 

By the way, my final advise to you is to not let the dealer wash/wax/polish/anything on your car. Some Honda dealers try to be nice to wash their cars as a courtesy, but you might want to steer away from their good intentions. They might know how to sell Hondas.... they might even know how to work on them... but they all suck as detailers....esp with black cars...

(you can picture it here... bunch of guys washing a bunch of cars at once... using sponges that havn't been rinsed from 1984... probably using the equivalent of AJAX and Palmolive... then one of them drops a sponge on the ground, inevitably picking up some nice little pebbles and dirt... only to be ground into your finish... then he washes the wheels and tires with the same spong, then finishes washing your hood... not pretty)

good luck getting you baby looking good again...