Statistics show that white, black, gray, and silver are the most frequently seen automotive colors, while gold, yellow, and purple are the least prevalent. Regardless of the hue, auto paint flaws can occur in any vehicle.
You’ve come to the right place if you’re curious about autos’ most common paint flaws. We’ve provided you with examples of the most typical auto paint defects.
Common Car Paint Issues
Paint imperfections can happen to either a new or an old car. While some are undetectable, others can harm your car’s overall appearance. Here are a few instances of car paint flaws and solutions for them:
1. Chipping
One of the most challenging automotive paint flaws to prevent is chipping. The leading cause of it is when things like rocks hit your car while driving on the highway. Depending on the size of the chip, it could need to be touched up or reapplied.
2. Clear Coat Issues
To shield their surfaces from the sun’s damaging UV rays, cars feature a transparent covering. The clear coat deteriorates when exposed to various outside conditions over extended periods, leading to apparent flaws that typically have a hazy look. During repairs, sections with apparent coat flaws require sanding and repainting.
3. Blistering
The blister-like flaw you notice on car surfaces is called blistering, as the name suggests. It occurs because car surfaces are covered in dirt or damp before painting. The best solution is to completely repaint the area after sanding the old paint.
4. Inclusion of Dust
Dust inclusion is one of the most prevalent paint flaws in new cars. It is the uneven lifting of paint by an outside substance, such as dirt and dust. Although surfaces must be clean of debris before painting new cars, occasionally, they are still exposed to dust. Dust inclusion can be removed by sanding and repainting.
5. Holograms
Holograms are those little dings caused by buffing or rubbing on automobile surfaces. They are among the examples of imperceptible auto paint defects and can be easily fixed by polishing.
How to Spot Other Paint Issues on Cars and Fix Them
The paint flaws that were described are merely the most typical ones. Here are a few additional common paint flaws that car owners commonly experience as sourced from professionals in auto body repair in St Petersburg:
1. Bleeding
The spot-like staining on car surfaces, known as bleeding, typically has a reddish or yellowish color. Like other types of auto paint defects, bleeding is frequently brought on by too much peroxide in polyester body fillers. The only way to correct it is to sand down and patch the afflicted region.
2. Chalking
The components in the paint residue cause chalking or powdering. Additionally, exposure to powerful UV light may cause it. Reapplying a high-gloss finish to the chalked area will fix it.
3. Clouding
Due to uneven base coat application, clouding typically manifests as stripes or spots and is most noticeable on metallic finishes. You can attempt to apply a mist coat when clouding happens. Sand the surface and consider repainting if it doesn’t work.
4. Creeping Corrosion
The irregular blister-like lifting you notice on automobile surfaces is corrosion creeping back. Rust buildup and improper painting preparation are two of its leading causes. The rusted region has to be sandblasted, stripped, or otherwise repaired. Cleaning and painting are the subsequent phases.
5. Cracking
Cracking can be caused by various factors, including inadequate curing, exposure to intense UV light, and incompatible paint systems. By sanding and repainting the damaged area, you can fix this flaw.
6. Cratering
Flat depressions to major wetting issues are all forms of crating. Its most frequent cause is oil, silicone, wax, or grease residue, although other factors, such as inappropriate additive usage, can also contribute to its formation. It requires sanding and repainting, just like other instances of auto paint defects.
7. Crinkling
When new paint is applied to cars, the bottom paint layers swell, which causes crinkling. It happens due to overly sanding the sealing coatings or not giving the substrate layers enough time to dry. It can be fixed by repainting after sanding it down once more, being careful not to overdo it this time.
8. Flaking
The delamination of paint results in flaking. When the surface for painting is inadequately cleaned and sanded, it happens. You’ll need to completely strip off the paintwork and repaint it to fix this flaw. Paint strippers should not be used as they contain chemicals that might harm the surfaces of cars.
Key Takeaway
Let’s face it, we all make mistakes, and improperly prepared substrates and the choice of paint supplies can lead to a poorly painted surface. The final product may also be impacted by elements in the painting process or work environment, such as humidity, temperature, dry times, film thickness, etc. Therefore, learning some of the reasons and treatments is a brilliant idea.
You can help develop ways to prevent future instances of these issues by researching paint flaws and determining potential causes in the workshop or garage. The expertise and skill of the painter can play a significant role in this. The following advice is provided in the hopes that it will assist some of us inexperienced painters to see potential problems before they cause us to lose our cool or throw away our spray guns.
