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Is this amount of paint / clear coat fade normal for 10 years?

fuzzybabybunny

fuzzybabybunny

Moderator<br>Digital & Video Cameras
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It's a 2006 Honda Fit. I'm in New Zealand and the car dealer says that red cars especially fade like this due to the hole in the ozone around this part of the world.

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Uhhhh... Still, it looks like an awful lot of paint / clear coat fade for just 10 years...
 
I'm leaning towards "it's a Honda thing" because I see other older cars on the lot and none of them have this level of fade...

Both side view mirrors. Door handles. The jam in the hatch door is faded and I don't even know how the sun would even get in there...
 
fr said:
Do you wax at all?
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Not my car. I'm just checking it out at the dealers. Possibly buying it. But after seeing all the paint fade I'm wondering if I should buy another car instead since I'm selling the car again in a month and a half and need to think about resale.
 
LTC8K6 said:
The ozone hole story is gold, though.
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This.

The original owners(s) prob did not take care of the paint as they should have. This is not the way it should be ... but can very well be when an owner/operator does not maintain the paint.
 
It's funny how the Honda dealer told you some bullshit Ozone Hole layer story to pass the buck onto someone else. Versus, god damn man this is a 10 year old car wtf are you expecting?????
 
notice how the base material is different i.e. the fade is most prominent on non-metal surface. this is quite common and I suspect it has something to do with the base preparation.
 
Honda repainted a lot of cars from around then, free of charge for just this symptom. I had an '08 Civic that was included; might be worth looking into. They even scheduled a date when they could provide a loaner. I think they had it 4-5 days.
 
Honda...my 10yo red firebird...my then 10yo red RX7...all the same on the plastic parts. Even more so on the firebird being an outdoor Cali car. Doesn't matter if it's a Honda.
 
dbcooper1 said:
Honda repainted a lot of cars from around then, free of charge for just this symptom. I had an '08 Civic that was included; might be worth looking into. They even scheduled a date when they could provide a loaner. I think they had it 4-5 days.
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On a 10 year old car??? nah...
 
sontakke said:
notice how the base material is different i.e. the fade is most prominent on non-metal surface. this is quite common and I suspect it has something to do with the base preparation.
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It's this, half of those parts are plastic.
 
Honda paint is shit. Every Honda/Acura I have owned or my family has owned has started oxidizing/failing within 6-8 years. All of them have had annual waxing, at minimum. The list of cars we've owned includes:

1996 Integra - red (oxidation)
2000 Odyssy - grey (spiderwebbing)
2001 CL - green (oxidation)
2005 TL - grey (spiderwebbing)
2008 civic - blue (oxidation)

The Toyotas, BMWs, Mercedes, and Mazdas haven't had any issues.
 
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Red in particular will always be a color that is especially prone to fade and oxidation. It's dark enough to get really hot in the sun and has a lot of pigmentation. Yellow is up there, too. Honda paint is hit or miss and can be on the thin side on some models, though it survives much better if cared for properly (hand-wax/sealant any time water isn't beading/sliding freely).

White will always be the color that lasts longest, due to having the least pigment and reaching the lowest temperatures in the sun. My 12 year old Accord's white paint is a simple polish away from looking new (minus rock chips here and there). It was obsessively cared for in the early days.

I had a red 91 Accord and by 15 years, there was practically zero clear coat left on any horizontal surface due to sun exposure.
 
thomsbrain said:
Red in particular will always be a color that is especially prone to fade and oxidation. It's dark enough to get really hot in the sun and has a lot of pigmentation. Yellow is up there, too. Honda paint is hit or miss and can be on the thin side on some models, though it survives much better if cared for properly (hand-wax/sealant any time water isn't beading/sliding freely).

White will always be the color that lasts longest, due to having the least pigment and reaching the lowest temperatures in the sun. My 12 year old Accord's white paint is a simple polish away from looking new (minus rock chips here and there). It was obsessively cared for in the early days.

I had a red 91 Accord and by 15 years, there was practically zero clear coat left on any horizontal surface due to sun exposure.
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I do remember when painting my house. One room (small dining room) wife wanted half red half yellow with a chair railing separating the two colors. I remember putting one coat of red on the wall and it looked like smeared blood. Putting a 2nd coat and it looked better. By the third coat it looked like shit but better than the 2nd. Fourth coat, some white areas bleeding through. Fifth coat, awesome. So it took one whole gallon of paint to paint HALF OF A WALL IN A SMALL ROOM.

I remember I was talking to an associate at ACE, she told me everybody avoids red paint if at all possible. I was reading painting contractors will charge extra for red paint.

I was reading the chemistry. Apparently red paint has the lowest amount of Titanium Dioxide and the most pigment. Since this is the case it doesn't distribute easily.
 
thomsbrain said:
Red in particular will always be a color that is especially prone to fade and oxidation. It's dark enough to get really hot in the sun and has a lot of pigmentation. Yellow is up there, too. Honda paint is hit or miss and can be on the thin side on some models, though it survives much better if cared for properly (hand-wax/sealant any time water isn't beading/sliding freely).

White will always be the color that lasts longest, due to having the least pigment and reaching the lowest temperatures in the sun. My 12 year old Accord's white paint is a simple polish away from looking new (minus rock chips here and there). It was obsessively cared for in the early days.

I had a red 91 Accord and by 15 years, there was practically zero clear coat left on any horizontal surface due to sun exposure.
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How does the amount of pigmentation contribute to fading?

In terms of noticability I think dark green is also up there, but there are plenty of dark green 10 year old cars, a 2005 Mazda that I'm currently looking at, that have zero paint issues.

In fact, this Honda is the only 10+ year old car I've looked at that has paint fade issues...
 
Last year (year 9) Kitacam's desert-sand-mica fading roof got a black toupe/repaint, and yesterday the chipped and fading hood got a repaint...excellent color match (whew!)....good I hope for 5 years...for some reason the trunk lid is still fine...
 
My take on it: It looks typical for a car that's been sitting outside all its life, but I would avoid it just based on the dealer's explanation. Weird explanations to normal things like that make my BS detector go off right away.
 
I can see ware and tare on the drivers door handle because often people are holding their keys and it just rubs on the paint.
 
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