Fixing clearcoat spots?

[Midwayman]

So I have a bunch of spots on my hood where something dripped on it and it ate the clearcoat. Bug and tar remover got rid of whatever it was, but I'm left with dull spots on my paint. Everything I've been able to find on you tube seems to deal with large patches of peeling clear. Anyone know of a good way to spot touch up clear? Doesn't have to be perfect, but less obvious like rock chip repairs would be nice.

 

[herm0016]

is it a dull spot that just needs a polish or is the clear coat gone? sounds like some rubbing compound and a towel are all you may need.

https://www.amazon.com/Meguiars-G18016-Clear-Rubbing-Compound/dp/B006FUT13G

and an one of the pads or a decent terry cloth towel. then use some cleaner wax after this step.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I can't be sure the following solution will work for you. It depends on whether the clearcoat has been just eaten away, or is oxidized.

The top of my 95 Trooper had a big, gray and white oxidation spot. The main color of the 2-tone SUV is Bronze Blue Pearl -- a beautiful deep royal blue metallic with an excellent clear-coat. All the other body panels look brand new after 24 years. I tried rubbing compound at first on the roof with little progress, and am now glad I didn't use an orbital buffer -- just good ol' elbow grease.

There was a big, white splotch of bird guano on the hood that had been there for something like six years -- a period of time I gave no care to the car's appearance. Bird guano oxidizes and eats paint.

I quickly discovered this product: L'Oxide from OxideOff.com

I restored the roof with a whole bottle of the stuff applied over several weeks and according to the instructions. You can see residual hints of oxidation, but the blue color has been restored, no different than the examples at their web-site. Over six months, I went through another cycle with L'Oxide using maybe a quarter of a bottle, after removing the previous application and wax I'd added with rubbing compound and an orbital buffer. Then, I applied another thin coat of L'Oxide, polished the roof with Meguiar's pre-wax finishing glaze, and topped that off with their Hybrid Ceramic Wax. Beautiful.

For the problem poop-on-the-hood, a little more attention was required. Because the rest of the hood was still pristine, the L'Oxide applications were local on a spot with 8" diameter. A few application cycles with rubbing compound in between makes it very hard to see the bird-poop damage. It's still slightly visible, but nobody would notice.

If your clearcoat has peeled off, I don't know what results you might get. I couldn't tell if you could wet-sand the remaining paint with 1000 grit, and apply fresh clearcoat with an aerosol over that, followed 30 days later with rubbing compound and wax. If that is possible or feasible, you could apply the L'Oxide to the basecoat paint, wait a month, grind it off with the buffer and wet-sand with 1000-grit, then try an aerosol clearcoat and the treatment I just explained. This is my speculation about it, and I couldn't be entirely sure. Still, what harm would it do? You'd think it could only be better than the existing paint damage.

 

[mindless1]

You can try a "polishing sealant", if it's just the clear coat looking hazy. To the untrained eye these products look about like a wax product, but do a slight amount of polishing and use a synthetic polymer instead of wax to take the place of the clear coat sheen, then you can follow up on the entire vehicle with a wax if that's not wet enough looking.

The next step up in aggressiveness would be toothpaste (or a straight polish product), rubbing a long time with a wet cloth, then sealant or wax. Next would be rubbing compound but at this point, you will want to follow up with motorized buffing a polish or toothpaste THEN fine polish sealant afterwards as rubbing compound is too aggressive to be the final abrasive on clear coat. You can skip steps, and have protection but less deep color and shine.

If that won't do it, you're looking at needing to remove a larger area of clear coat and put new clear coat down. You might be able to feather it in doing a small area, depending on location and paint color, or might have to do an entire panel. 2K clear coat is far longer lasting than plain old single component clear coat. You'd sand and wet sand down till it looks uniform before clear coating, at least some area past the blemish. If it still looks different at the blemish and just past it where you removed coating, clear coating won't change that and you have to remove more.

If it was something acidic like tree sap or bird feces, you may find that the underlying color coat is damaged. You can then try to continue wet sanding to go deeper but run the risk of getting near the primer layer, then you'd need to widen the painting area further and put down some color too.

Depends on what the vehicle is worth and your vanity factor into the equation. I'd start with the polishing sealant. Normally strong hot dish detergent soluntion can strip that off if it didn't help enough, but there are so many exotic formulas out there today that I am only generalizing.