Paint Condition after 2+ Years of Ownership
 

I'd like to hear from owners who have had at least two years of documented driving with their cars, how is your paint holding up?

I've not been very fortunate, for how well I have cared for the vehicle.

Some quick details on my care include:
garage kept, not driven in the rain, only above average to excellent roads driven on, only driven in winter when it is dry and the salt is cleared from the roads, minimal highway use, when in traffic or on busy roads I leave plenty distance between my car and the vehicle ahead of me, washed two to three times a month with a combination of hand washing and touch-less car washing, waxed car at least twice a year.

Despite the care and my best efforts I have:
chips on the front bumper/headlight plastic, "flakes" of paint chips on the rocker panels, multiple road debris chips/scratches on the front and rear fenders, and clear evidence of washing, even while using the best techniques and higher quality products.

Now, some of this damage is barely noticeable and will regularly occur when driving any vehicle, but out of the cars that I've owned the FR-S undoubtedly has the poorest quality of paint. FHI manufactured aside, not something I'd expect with Toyota's name on it.

I experienced some of this early on, but have hung low while I followed threads about chipping issues. Can anyone else share condition after two years?

Like yourself, I only use the best products available for my car and because of how easy it is to damage the paint I decided to have the car opticoated later in its life. I wish I took care of that when I first got this car.

For me it wasn't even 1 month after I got the car I was kicking myself in the ass for not getting some type of paint protection.
At the bare minimum the full hood, front bumper, and fenders should be done.

Now that my hood, front bumper, and 3/4's the drivers side back has been repainted I'm curious as to how the aftermarket paint will fare compared to the stock on pass side.


For those that did opticoating new, did it help a lot?

My front bumper is so beat up, no jokes, and I have WRB...
Sigh...

Admittedly, I have discovered opticoat only after buying the FR-S, but my dealer never even mentioned protector film.

I'm not sure if I'm more disappointed or surprised at how bad it really is...

after almost 2 years and 35,000+ miles, I pretty much could use a whole new paint job

Opti-coated and full front end paint protection film from new. Over 2 years of daily use and when it's clean, looks pretty well as good as it did new.

That's aggravating.

Bird s#!t eats right through the clear.

I carefully remove everything the day it happens.

I have several quarter-sized spots of orange-peel. Right through the clear in a single day. They're either radioactive birds or this clear coat is sub-par. :-/

Front bumper, fenders, doors scratched and beat up by cones from autocrossing. More damage to the BRZ in 2 years of autocrossing than all my previous cars combined in the previous 13 years. The paint is thin, as is the sheetmetal.

I'm 30k+ miles. Did opticoat and 3m on the front bumper myself when new. I have only one decent rock chip on the front lip of a fender. I've left bird crap on a few days and noticed no lasting effects. I wash every 2 weeks in the summer, and probably monthly in the winter, and I have very minimal marking. Only hand washing. Never waxed.

My paint looks fine, except for all the little chips I get from road debris on the front of the car.

Haven't had for 2 years but 6 months and 20,000 miles I hope I am qualified to comment on the subject.
I read all the time about how bad the paint chips but have not really found that with the Lava colour. About 98% of my time is spent on the highway and part of that is down a stretch near some gravel pits. This means there is a pile of rocks that get thrown up by other vehicles. So far I have taken more high velocity hits then I care to think of. Of this only three have actually chipped the paint and they also all left dime sized dents. When I detail I can see small specks in the clear coat where others obviously bounced off but a quick buff removes all sign of the.
I even got hit on the top of my bumper with a tail light lens that flew off a car in front of me and it left a fairly deep grove about 4 inches long but the paint did not crack or chip at all.
Wonder if the Lava paint is more flexible and able to take hits better or something along that line.
Be interesting to know if there are one or two colours that are worse then others when it comes to damage.

The paint on these cars is just crap imho

Living country doesn't help either.

Paint Condition after 2+ Years of Ownership
 

I live in east coast. Which means 4 seasons, occasional bird, has bathed in salt, it's a DD, it goes through car wash twice a month (called soft cloth LOL), never waxed since I got it. So far the paint seems ok if you get close you'll notice swirl marks, 2years of ownership.

2 years 36k miles . For some reason my passenger door above the handle paint on the body line actually came off already. Not even sure how I detail my own car but I've only polished it once and used a Dual action polisher so it would be impossible to burn through the paint but somehow that area was probably not painted right lmao. But here it stands still beautiful.. I've used chemical guys jetseal blacklight and butter wet wax. Also used sonax polymer net shield , meguirs 26 yellow wax, garry deans infinite use detail juice, juice boost and his washing method. Attachment 100529


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Hot Lava is the only color available (aside from silver ignition and yellow) that wasn't created by Subaru right? Maybe that makes a difference.

I've had my car for 1 year, and it has some chips, but it's still in acceptable condition. I knew what to expect when buying the car though.

Maybe I got different paint to everyone else... I've only had it a year though, it's a 2014 MY. Different paint formulation?

I clayed, polished and sealed (2 coats) with Autoglym products about 2 weeks after I got it, since then, monthly washes with about 6 weekly Mother's carnauba waxes.

My paint is still flawless. Even after being hit with some small quarry stones that fell off the back of a truck I was behind.

Had mine for 2 and half years, almost 30k miles and my paint has bunch of swirls. :( It's mostly because I used to wash my car the wrong way. I do have quite a bit rock chips. Used to have a huge bird crap mark etched into paint, I clay barred that and its gone now.
Surprisedly, it does look very nice a far though.

Mine is white, and I buy at soon it release, so summer 2012...
If it wasn't for my bad driving habits the paint would continue like new. The front bumper have scratches on both sides (cones at practice) also have a chip on front (highway driving)... Thanks to my coworker it have dings on both doors.

I do care about the car, so is garage keep, 2 clay so far and zymol one every month.

But I do really would like to paint the car complete with a little more pear on the white.

I bought mine in March 2013 and have ~14000 miles on it now. Opti-coated when new (within the first few hundred miles) and I think it has made a difference. I only hand wash it with microfibre sponges and drying towels. There isn't any noticable swirling, only the occasional really light linear scratch mark from things flying past or over the paint near the fenders. The front bumper gets plastered with bugs, but I haven't noticed any nasty chips. The rear quarter (fender bulge area) seems to be an area where rock chips can occur more easily. I've got one or two small ones there. Otherwise the car is pretty flawless except for a spot by the license plate where I hit it with a screw driver by accident.

Hey @FRSupra thanks for the poll! Even though it is still early it is very interesting that the results show that the vast majority are fine with the paint. Not the results I expected to tell you the truth.

My front bumper and hood are pretty beat up. However nothing out of the normal for the amount of highway driving I do(128 miles/day) and where I live(NH). I do drive it year round so it sees quite a bit of salt being thrown from trucks.

I have seen normal wear and tear after 40k miles and 2.5 years. That being said, there are parallel scratches in the finish that are either from a dealer car wash or my snow brush in the winter. I plan to rectify this in the spring.

Now what really bothers me is my parents car. They bought a Kia Soul, and the paint and clear coat on that car is much better and harder than the paint on our cars. My parents had run it through car washes all the time before I detailed it this fall. It didn't even need an correction, as there were no detectable scratches or swirl marks in the paint (??? No I don't have a "special" light, but still, What? Why?). I think the clear coat on this car is super hard. I quickly clayed it a and used CarPro Reload and it looked fantastic.

My car is Hot Lava:bonk:

Not quite. I have also burnt through the clear, and believe it or not it was on the passenger door.

It's still a FHI based product however, even if it's a Toyota exclusive color. The Hot Lava found on the IQ is actually a different paint code (4R8)

I've actually not had any experience with Autoglym. I'll have to check it out.

^This. Not something I'd expect. Not Toyota.

Clearly FHI.

Well, if you read some of these replies, it's like: "Well other than x, x, and x my paint is good... LOL

Thanks everyone who's responded so far.

Only damage is underneath the fog light where I hit a cone, the paint cracked.

I run a spray-on 3M clear bra and after 12 months, 4k miles in road trips, track days, & 2 winters the front still looks new.

The paint is pretty shitty I've had my car for about a year with 18,000 miles a few paint chips on the front im going to have to touch up later. In 2 years I will probably have the front end repainted due to all the bird crap eating through my clear and I wax pretty regularly.

Might be off topic but lol I met one of my friends to pickup my Jordans and he put the box on my trunk @_@ Omg my mind was going nuts lmao and when he left I took the box off and it left a deep scratch that's still there :(


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Bought in 6/2013. Lots of micro scratches over the whole body. Need to get it waxed. Have about 4 small small rock dings. BTW...anybody know a good...cheap place to get color matched touch up paint. Like pen sized and spray can size. Local dealers don't have them and online retailers seem kind of expensive

2 years/ 2 winters/ garage kept/ opti-coat when new/ hand wash/ use Zanio (Z2) after most washes --->looks new...no swirls/ no scratches/ few chips.

Shit, there goes my theory!


YA but the poll results say that they expected some wear and tear and find it acceptable.

Who needs a front bumper? I'll eventually get a new one painted, but for now...I don't even wax it when I wax the car.

Interesting thread! I have a Firestorm with 25,000 miles and so far no issues with the paint. I live in harsh conditions in Socal Desert. It gets 115+ degrees and constant sand storms but the paint has held up good, my headlights not so much.

57,000 miles, Firestorm, mostly country roads.

I have multiple chips in the bumper and on the front quarter of the hood. Given the leading edge there is curved down with no protection I'm not surprised, but it does seem more susceptible to chips than I would have expected.

I know that it already has more "white spots" on it than my wife's '05 Red Mustang, but the exposed area is significantly more as well.