Cautionary tale... I buffed through the clearcoat of my brand new WRB BRZ, by hand!
 

Hi all!

I found an interesting risen-up little yellow spot on my one-month old '18 BRZ yesterday. I thought, huh, cool, let me buff it out myself.
https://i.imgur.com/llbrclL.jpg

So I went to town with Ultimate Compound and a microfiber pad. I got rid of the yellow spot but ended up with now a quarter-sized hazy region. I figured it just needed more TLC and polishing and went to bed.
https://imgur.com/Tsxg56k.jpg

This morning, I did a check with a white towel and polish, sure enough, blue paint came off onto the white towel.

So yes, it is possible to compound through brand new Subaru paint, by hand...

I am in profound, profound sadness right now..:cry::cry::cry:

https://imgur.com/a/J8e3axf.jpg

EDIT: I am now saving up for a passenger side rear quarter respray. Does anyone know how much that would run me to get a job that is as good as factory (well, preferably thicker than factory clearcoat :( )

Just leave it alone and save your money.
There is risk in respraying the whole thing.

What about spraying clear in that general area
and wet sanding and buffing it?

Great, so we can't even thoroughly detail our cars when it inevitably turns to swirly city from years of usage.



That sucks man. Since it is brand new, better throw a clear bra on the entire front too. Those rock chips will come in no time...

I discovered Magic Eraser (which I've seen recommended many times) will "buff" to a nice haze too (although at least not through clear coat).

Already have clear bra on the entire front end! This was on the rear quarter panel.

I have heard that doing partial respray will be super noticeable and not worth the money down the road.

People have been properly detailing their cars for years on this forum.....

Maybe the clear coat was already damaged and that's why he had the Green spot in the first place?

I found a temporary solution for until I can cough up the money to have it fixed properly.

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Track-Su...car+decals+sti

just mask around it, spray it, and blend it in with some polish. after a wax it will look fine

Keep buffing until all the paint is off the car, then send it somewhere to have actual paint put on it. The paint on these things is unbelievably shitty: I've never seen anything like it on any other car.

The problem is that the yellow spot I got out seemed to have smeared into the exposed blue paint, so if I or a shop did that, I think I will forever have a yellow-tinted quarter-sized spot.

I'm convinced you had a paint defect from the factory.
As summerwolf said, 1000's of people have compounded/polished their 86 without this issue.

It's very possible. There was a separate imperfection on the same rear quarter panel that I had to have someone remove professionally.

Do you think if I show them the picture of the yellow dot and explain that all I did was compound by hand. Subaru of America may be sympathetic?

Also, I had to travel quite far to get this particular car out of state. So bringing it back to the original dealership is out of the question.

My 2015 STI was the same, if you looked at it hard it would chip.

My front bar had damage from hitting bugs on the highway.

"Apparently" its the new environmentally friendly water based paint, it is really soft.

But, using a compound to do it was like using a scouring pad to clean your face, way to harsh for a new coating.

I had a in depth conversation with some detailers about it.

Always use a good wash products, foam and gernie first, change or rinse your wash cloth per panel, change the water/wash mix regularly and don't press down hard, and keep the wax up.

For drying never use a chamois, blot, don't rub, use micro fiber towels.

If you get bird or bug shit on the paint clean it straight off, bird shit will eat through the clear coat, quickly.

I live in a pretty dry dusty environment, I wash my car in the garage, or undercover, but never on windy dry days.

I also wax monthly.

I would take it to the dealer, paint defects are covered under warranty.

It could be a newer, thin paint, but I doubt it is that bad. The cars would need a respray after a few years if that was the case.

I have a 13', and I have machine polished (with a random orbital polisher), waxed (by hand and with the orbital polisher) and buffed the car (by hand or with a orbital buffer) dozens of times without issue. I have also polished out trouble spots like after doing debadging, and again, no issues. I don't know if the OP pressed too hard, heated the metal too much, compounded the panel in the sun or outside where there paint was soft, or just had a thin patch from the factory.

so go down to the plastic in a square, mask, primer, light sand, remove the mask and move it out a bit, 2 coat the wrb, sand, remove the mask, feather in the clear coat, high grit polish, medium grit polish, antiswirl, wax. ive done it 3 times on my car so far

As mentioned in another thread, it was bee poop. It has stained my paint as well. Why Subaru? Why must your paint be so terrible?

The same thing is said on other forums about newer cars from nearly every brand out there... it’s likely due to the eco friendly paint. The paint on my BRZ is holding up just fine so far though.

I also have a WRB. I found a "spot" behind the driver door. So I thought I could buff it out myself. Big mistake. Ended up with a quarter sized haze spot that looked worst than yours. I had to take my car to the Subaru body shop to have them repair a scratch that they put on my car. While there the manager noticed the haze spot. They took my car in and brought it back a half hour later with both the scratch and the haze spot 98% gone. I think a very careful and knowledgeable tech can make that disappear to your satisification. Probably very inexpensive or free.

If you polish by hand, you will have Haze.
You need to polish with a random orbital to get glass gloss.

So in my case, it was confirmed that I went through the clearcoat. So @cliff unfortunately I don't think there is much to do other than a refinish for the panel and blending into adjacent panels. I am slapping on a sticker on there for now and will be getting it redone in a few months (after a long road trip and cross country move).

If the base coat and the primer are both still there, there is no worry of rusting, yes?

If you noticed all the people commenting that they can't detail their cars joined in Jan 2018- Aug 2018 or sooner :bonk: Lack of experience is the issue here :lol:

Find subaru or other approved auto body shops to do it


Also FYI you have to be careful with the ultimate compound, honestly your first step should've been clay bar to see if you could've gotten the spot out, then ultimate compound if it still didn't come out. At the first sign of the spot being gone and haze appearing you should've hit it with the meguiars polish.

I've done this tons of times to my 2015 FR-S with 0 issues, I've even taken out clearcoat scratches on the trunk with the 1000-2000 grit wet sand method without cutting too deep into the clear.

the newer "eco friendly" paint does not translate to the clear coat, clearcoat is still solvent based. this should not have happened id take it to the dealer and show them, i wouldnt mention you did anything id just say it has this weird spot and see where you get. all new cars should have enough clear coat that you can sand and buff them, something is wrong with your car id take that and a paint meter and check your quarter panel against another new car.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will take it to a dealer (I traveled out of state for this car so I can't go back to the dealer I bought the car from.) I don't think I am comfortable pretending that I never buff'ed it, mainly because they would certainly ask why I took delivery of the car at its current state.

I would probably tell them that I polished by hand and a new clearcoat should not be this thin and have them check the unpolished area with a paint thickness gauge.

You admit you used an abrasive compound and they will say there is absolutely nothing they can do and you just wasted your time.

ultimate compound is a pretty aggressive product, plus applying by hand with a lot of pressure... sorry to OP, that sucks but hopefully others can learn from your mistakes. Use the least aggressive product that works. A DA polisher and good pads is safer than hand polishing too in my experience.

For people who want to polish you should start with something very mild like M205 and go UP from there if that doesn't work. Don't go stronger->weaker after you found you rubbed your clearcoat off.

If you’ll notice, I was replying to Ganthrithor‘s comment about the paint being unbelievably shitty on these cars... not to the OP about the clearcoat

Yeah guys, sorry. I was just dumb and did a very dumb thing. Still quite upset, but I will get over it and get it fixed (at some point, can't really justify swinging the cash right now as much as it hurts me) and move on.

yes but what you are referring to in that post is in fact the clear coat, everything you talk about in that reply references what is actually the clear coat. it has nothing to do with waterborne paint and everything to do with subaru using shit materials and not enough of it.

I found a few light scratches on my trunk and roof.
I think a critter crawled over my car.

I washed the surface.
Then I hand compounded (20 seconds max)
Then I hand polished (20 seconds max)

Obviously, I didn't remove much clear by hand,
but there was no paint on my buffing pads.

Something is up with your car.

I polished mine by hand but use a very low cut compound (basically just off the shelf Meguiars Ultimate Polish) and it had brought my car back to glass gloss after 4 years of neglect.

This eco friendly bs paint has been around for over a decade, I think it's due to the lack of lead that makes it less durable. :iono:

I don't even want to machine apply anything on this car since the panels are quite thin and flexy.

I haven't had a problem using Meguiar's M205 (their lightest compound) and a Porter Cable Dual-Action polisher (PC7424XP) on quality cutting pads. Ultimate Polish faired well too, and its fairly aggressive.

OP didn't post the tools he used. There are much more abrasive products out there.

No, lead has nothing to do with it. Water-base has a little bit to do with it, but there is a bigger contributor.

<-- currently working as an engineer in the paint industry

The problem is the transition to 2-wet and 3-wet processes. Formerly, each coat of paint was cured individually during the paint process. E-coat, color, clear. Three ovens is a lot of line space and a lot of energy consumption. The paint and pretreatment companies came up with a was to reduce the length and number of ovens, which cuts down dramatically on energy consumption and reduces the total line length. It also (in a kind of backwards way) cuts down on paint defects that occur during the painting operation.

However, it results in less total paint being applied and modifies how the paint cures.

This is the issue.

Either get a clear wrap job or just give up. It's going to be a while (5 years) before we get good paint again. It takes time to develop.

I would get a 2 part clearcoat like USC Spray Max 2k clearcoat spray paint. Prep the surface by cleaning it, mask the surrounding area adding an additional 6 inches outside the work area so you can blend it. Spray it and then buff and polish it to blend in with the rest of the car. Shouldn't be to difficult if you know what you're doing.

A) he buffed through the clearcoat by hand.

B) he has already had a body shop fix it and now has issues with the fix.

C) too

Yep. It all goes back to the international agreement on VOC reduction back in 2011. The problem is they changed the paint and coating but not how it is applied and cured. Several manufacturers (surprisingly Ford is a leader in this) have updated the process and have fewer issues now but some older plants such as Gunma are still a ways away from improving the process. They should have all their ducks in a row just in time for the rules to change again.

Ha, I think I am going to leave the fix be. Going to go crazy being this meticulous about paint on a DD :bellyroll:

https://media.giphy.com/media/7SWL6F...PmJh/giphy.gif