Hi,
My Daughter has an '02 Corsa in red. It gleams but unfortunately the bonnet and roof have become 'milky'. I did polish with the 'buy from Halfords' colour majic and it did restore it for a few days. Is there a better solution (other than a respray). I want the bonnet and roof to look like the rest of the car.
Your advice and suggestions - as alwatys are appreciated.
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These are the views of Robin the Technician with 35 years in the trade. I fix, therefore I am...
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A good wet mopping (Farecla?) and then a polish with a decent wax would help, surely?
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A good wet mopping (Farecla?) and then a polish with a decent wax would help surely?
done just that today on a ford red,
could use the car body as a mirror to comb my hair if i had some :-(
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Could it be a job for T Cut?
Clk Sec
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Robin
If the milkiness isn't even across shut-lines onto the wings etc. then it's had those panels badly resprayed with cheap paint.
A cut a polish will help for a while; but the permanent answer is flatting it all off and respraying with quality paint.
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Having three red vauxhalls in the family over the last 13 years I can say with certainty that the vauxhall red paint does turn milky as it ages. None of ours has been reqprayed but all have this problem- regular polishing prevents it. I'm too lazy for that and have one of those electric polishing machines and a t cut and polish once a year keeps it at bay.
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When you t cut it or mop it etc to original colour ensure a good polish is applied, and repeatedly at frequent intervals.
Its lack of polish (and poor vauxhall paint)that allows it discolour so easy.
Frequent polishing is much easier than t cutting etc.
And remeber t-cut is not a polish; its a paint restorer. The paint needs to be protected.
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(and poor vauxhall paint)
I agree with the above statement, but not the comment about a lack of polish.
I owned a 1996 'P' Vectra from new and it had a very regular polish of at least two to three times a year. First two to three years of ownership were fine, but then I could no longer stop the paint from having a milky mottled effect on the bonnet, roof and boot for more than a couple of months after polishing.
I eventually polished so much that the primer was starting to show through on the wing edges where they meet the bonnet. I used to compare mine with a company 'M' reg Ford Mondeo pool car that we had at the time in solid red that had never seen a polishing mitt in all the time we had it and there was hardly a sign of fade at all.
Final straw was a rear-end shunt and what the resprayer told me. He said that he used to work for Vauxhall and that they've always had known problems with fade on certain colours and red was one of those.
After that, trying to keep the rest of the car looking like the new shiny boot was a hopeless cause and I sold the car after 5 years, buying a metallic colour Vectra instead.
I would not recommend anyone to buy a red coloured Vauxhall unless they were only planning to keep it from new or up to three years old.
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However, by contrast I own a 18 year old bright red (Carmine red) Vauxhall Cavalier, carefully polished once a year with Autoglym Super Resin polish that is as shiny red now (no pink) as when it was new. I think half the problem with red cars in particular, is they either see no polish or they are polished, then washed the rest of the time with something totaly unsuitable like washing up liquid that straight away strips off the polish.
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When I had a red car, a respected bodyshop owner told me not to use T Cut on red cars as it contains ammonia which....turns red pigment milky!
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Our Red Yaris still looks like new, it's 8 in September. Just a regular polish 3-4 times a year is all that is needed, just like my metallic silver car.
Vauxhall reds do seem poorer quality than most other manufacturers ? Something I've noticed on many many occasions.
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Lots of faded red corsa`s around here.
The red cars friend, is a cool dark garage. IMHO :)
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"Lots of faded red corsa`s around here"
Lots of faded pink Fiestas, Punto, Saxo's, Polos round here too. If any bright red paint is not cared for, it is particularly susceptible to fading whatever the make. Even the upper parts of the red metal work on the hotel next to my office has gone pink in about five years & I don't think Vauxhall sprayed that for them!
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If any bright red paint is not cared for it is particularly susceptible to fading whatever the make.
Very true Victorbox. IIRC, Rover ended up laquering their red paints to help prevent them fading so quickly.
The reason why reds tend to fade faster than other colours is because of the pigments used in red paint are more susceptible to uv light from the sun and end up bleaching the pigment.
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Update....
Gave it a good T cut this afternoon followed by a good 'Red' colour polish. It looks brilliant. I will continue to polish it at regular intervals.
Thanks to all those who offered solutions to this - its always appreciated.
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These are the views of Robin the Technician with 35 years in the trade. I fix, therefore I am...
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Suggest to apply Autoglym Super Resin Polish after you have waxed it.
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Do I add this in addition to the colour magic I applied yesterday? Or is it used 'instead of' the colour magic? At the moment its pristine after the 'T' cut and polish and I want to prolong the time between polish's as much as possible as it was a lot of work to get it like it is.
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These are the views of Robin the Technician with 35 years in the trade. I fix, therefore I am...
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Once you've got the colour back I can confirm from 18 years experience that regular use of Autoglym Super Resin Polish (in my Cavalier's case only once every 12 months) keeps the red nice & shiny .... & not pink. Whilst it sits in a garage now, it spent 15 years outside in all weathers. I only ever wash my cars with Autoglym Car Shampoo as well.
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I used the "Colour Magic" type polish on a red car, repeated after a few months. I found that the polish went as badly faded as the original paint, if not worse. It faded very quickly.
I ended up using a cutting compound on a mop (not T cut) to get the stuff off. Nothing else would touch it. The paint thus exposed was treated with Autoglym as Victorbox suggests.
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DO NOT USE T-CUT!!!!!!! Your only making the problem worse!!!!!
Red paints are very prone to fading due to the way they absorb a lot of UV light, which in turn oxidises the paint surface (the white residue)
You need to remove the oxidisation, to do this you need either an abrasive polish (compound) or a chemical cleaner (depending how bad the oxidisation has got). T-Cut as already stated contains amonia which actually speeds up the oxidisation process, that's why you end up needing to do it every few months.
Clean away the oxidisation, and then use a good quality UV blocking sealant or wax (or both) and the finish will stay blemish free for at least a year.
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As I've already used 'T' cut and polished it with 'Colour Magic', would It be a good idea to apply a decent polish as suggested by others i.e. Autoglym? I also have a container of Mer which at the time was supposed to be the dog's 'bit's' - is this a good polish to apply??
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These are the views of Robin the Technician with 35 years in the trade. I fix, therefore I am...
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Mer is probably OK, but having used both I find Autoglym Super Resin polish easier to apply & buff off. I was always a bit worried about what was in Mer as you can polish glass, your plastic double glazing & plastic garden furniture with it as well! I prefer a product dedicated to just polishing automotive paintwork.
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Update...
After the rain at the weekend I noticed that the discolouration was just startint to return so went out and bought som Autoglym. Gave the area's affected a good polish and it has come up really well.
Thanks to all those who offered advice and guidance.
p.s. I did have a look at a few pictures of cars for sale on Autotrader and the red ones on offer did exhibit signs of milky paint. Still, I suppose if you know how to cure it then it could be a good bargaining chip to knock the price down!!!
Thanks again.
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These are the views of Robin the Technician with 35 years in the trade. I fix, therefore I am...
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