Tips for Dealing with BRZ/86 Paint

[abyssFT86]

I recently bought a new BRZ and found out that the paint is far less forgiving than my other car. I learned a few lessons about BRZ/86 paint care just a little too late. Sharing that here in case it is helpful to other owners.

The BRZ / 86 has fragile paint

The paint on these cars is susceptible to scratching, chipping, and etching. People on the forum have attributed this to (a) monetary cost savings and (b) new environmental regulations which are leading manufacturers to use more eco-friendly paint and processes at the expense of durability. I suspect elements of both are true. End of the day, it doesn't really matter why. It's just important to know that defects happen easily.

In my case I set up an appointment to get PPF on my car as soon as I took delivery. While I was waiting on that, I had a bird poop (nuclear looking) on my trunk lid and etch my paint. I also picked up a big yellow bug splatter on the front which etched the front bumper, and a rock chip. So 3 weeks into ownership I had 3 paint flaws. It happens fast.

There are things you can do about it

The issues noted above could have been prevented if I had a slightly better plan with my car when it arrived. A few things I learned:

• Keep a microfiber and quick detailer in the car. If you see a bug splatter or bird poop, the key is to get it off quickly. I left mine on because I didn't want to scratch it by wiping the car without spraying it down first, but that was the wrong move since both are acidic meaning they will etch paint if left on.
• Use the right procedure to clean up splatters. If you do need to quick detail to get rid of bird poop or whatever, you want to spray detailer on both the paint and on the microfiber towel you use to wipe. If the splatter has started to dry, it can be helpful to place the wet microfiber on top of the bird poop (or whatever) and let it soak for a few minutes first. This loosens it up so that you don't have to make a bunch of passes over it to get it off, thus minimizing risk of scratching. You also want to use a rolling motion with the microfiber towel rather than dragging it flat across the paint. Doing so means you are hitting the surface with clean towel and pulling the dirt up and away as you move along, rather than dragging it over the paint as you go.
• If you can't get something out, go to a reputable detailer. I couldn't get the bird poop out of my trunk with a claybar, so I brought it to a shop. They polished it and got it almost totally cleaned up, and charged me only $25. That was a deal because I was starting to make it look worse with the claybar. It's easy to move the problem in the wrong direction with paint this sensitive. If you get to the point where you don't know the right approach to fix something, it's time to bring it to someone who does.
• Getting PPF (and other protections) faster is probably better than optimizing. I was being picky about researching PPF (Xpel vs Suntek, etc) and found two shops I liked, then waited for an appt with the one that had a better price. In hindsight I would have gone with whichever of the two could get me in sooner. I also would not have driven my car as much in the interim, especially on the highway.
• Don't park under trees. My brain always thinks "trees = shade", but I need to recalibrate to "trees = acidic bird droppings".

There are lots of options for the long term

What you do to deal with the cheap paint issue really depends on your car's intended use. A few options:

• Ignore it. PPF is not cheap so if protecting paint isn't your priority this is the cheapest / lowest attention option.
• Use PPF. I went with full front PPF since I drive highways a lot and pick up tons of rock chips, and will track the car.
• Wrap when it gets bad. Someone on the forum mentioned that you can just wrap the car if the paint gets too beat up. I thought this was a great idea. It led me to invest a bit in PPF (full front) but not to PPF everything. I saved that money for a re-wrap later which seems like a better way to "fix" the surface of this car to be less fragile. If I still have it in 5-10 years, I suspect I'll go that route.

Let me know if you have other ideas here, I'll edit and add them. Hope this is helpful.

[radroach]

Here's some things I'd share:

Be gentle to the headlights and never aggressively spray them with a pressure washer. Learned this after my headlights showed bubbles after washing:

Use the lightest polishing step you can when machine polishing. I hired a detailer once and he used a medium cut polish, which cleaned the car well but it took down a lot of clear coat. The BRZ's factory clear coat is what gives the car its luster and without it, it doesn't look as great. The clear coat is very soft and can be cut down very easily with too aggressive of a polishing step. If I were to go back I would have used the right pads and polishes. Notably, lake country finishing pads and M205 would probably be the most I'd use.

[why?]

replace as much of it as possible with carbon fiber parts.