montivette

I took my 1985 Corvette to the car wash last Friday. I used the pressure washing wand like I have on other cars I have owned and which I have used on this car in the past. Normally I do handwash the Vette at home when I am near home anyways.

Afte washing the car I pull out some towels to dry the car and notice a huge spot on the hood which no longer has clear coat on it. I look at the towel and it has clearcoat chunks on it. I look around the car and see a couple different spots on the hood missing clearcoat, one on the passenger door, and one on the rear quarter panel. The paint under the clear looks OK although it has no sheen (well at least not the same sheen as when there is clear over it.)

I did not have the pressure washer spraying two inches from the paint or anything like that.

Is it really possible to spray the clearcoat right off the car on a 20 year old car?

I guess I am looking for something else to explain this other than the power washing. LIke maybe some chemical got on the clearcoat while I was driving and caused this? A couple other possibilities include: recently had the car in a bodyshop to repaint the mirror and kind of wonder if something got spilled on it. I wonder about the car wash itself, as in maybe there was some chemical mixed in the water, or if they recylcle there water, maybe somebody dumped chemicals into the car wash and they got recycled and sprayed on the paint. Also, the car has been sitting outside in the rain and sun for a week cause I painted my garage floor so I wonder if I could blame chemical rain. I did not use any chemical strippers or cleaners in prepping the garage floor (it had previously been painted so I only sanded it down.) Also

I am wondering if anyone had this happen to them or someone they have known?

In terms of repair I would like to say a person could spray clear over them areas and sand it and make it look somewhat better, but gosh, if those areas peeled right off, I kind of wonder if the clear on the rest of the car is loose, or ready to come off too. I am thinking this is gonna be a total repaint type deal.

mothersworry

Clear coat can peel espacially with the age of your car. Look at all the rustangs out there with clear coat that has chuck off the hoods. I believe the 80's clear coat was not as good as todays and was known to peel.

rightofway

i think it's just the hazzard of having 20 year old paint. when i take the cover off of my car it has flakes of clear on it. in my case i have never seen the car with much clear on it so i don't worry a whole lot. but you can probably chock this up to age.

Morley

Your 85 shouldn't have a clear coat, that mess started in 86.
Sounds like someone did some paint work on the car, used clear to blend the repaired area into the rest of the car. That never holds up for long before starting to lift.

newbecorvetteguy

Can't remember the exact years but it was in there somewhere that the government mandated car manufacturers change their painting processes to be more environmentally freindly. Took the manufacturers a few years to get the mix right. That left customers with vehicles that the paint would fall off in sheets. I had an '88 s-10 that did the same thing by about 1994. If you got 20 years out of yours you did good. Still annoying as hec though.

MrRenoman

My '85s clearcoat started flaking off leaving just the old dull basecoat too. Only fix is to sand all of the clear coat off down to the base coat on all the panels where the clear is coming off, prime, rebase and clear. The lower part of the car's clearcoat was still intact so I just sanded the clear, primed, and rebase coated it then I shot the whole car with clearcoat. Doing only a partial paint job will probably yield a mismatch. Repaint the whole car.

Art

INTIMIDATOR ZO6

Some of the problems you see with the clear coats were because:
When spraying the Base Coat/Clear Coat some mfg.'s won't following the Paint Mfg guidelines to applying the BC/CC paint. You have a window of 24 Hours to apply the Clear Coat after spraying the Base Coat. If not your Clear Coat will not stick to the Base Coat. House of Kolor now has a sealer you can spray over your Base Coat to give you more time before you have to Clear it.

okies93

possibly age or possibly the vette has been repainted at one time or another and the shop used sub standard material or didn't know what they were doing. either way it sounds like new paint job is in the works. house of kolors would be my choice for the material and i would search for a top notch shop to do the work. you will only need 2 credit cards and one check book to get it done.

86C4EVER

I had the same thing happen to mine. Most of the clear coat was coming off the front and rear bumpers. When they taped the fenders to repaint the bumpers, they pulled the clear coat off them.
I ended up getting the whole thing repainted.
The only thing I wish I would have done different is the color. I really like the blackrose, but it would have cost a lot more than just repainting it the stock color. Maybe next time.
Fred

Cruisinfanatic

All C4's have clear on them

montivette

Thanks for the input. Sounds like a complete paint job is in order as who knows how long the rest of the clear will stick to the car.

It just sucks though that this happened. It is rather depressing.

comp

interesting

steve1ph2

correct me if im wrong but some where in the 80s the epa made the auto makers change to a more enviromental friendly formula. aka. 86 or 87 chevy pickups. i know everybody has seen or owned one. be that as it may not is all lost. what i would do if i were you is wet sand the whole car down with 600 grit. feather the edeges around the missing clear coat and scuff the rest all with the 600. im not recommending the 400 grit for this app the scratches are to deep but will work with extra coats of clear. mask the whole car iv used the dupont 20/20 clear which hardens like hell but kind of expensive. spray 3 or 4 coats with a binks or other gun wait about a month then go back and color sand it with either 1000 or 1200 grit depending on how hard you want to work when buffing the scratches out. buff the scratches out using a waffel pad and compound. of course this is just a 101. but really its all you need. primer, sealer and all that stuff is not need for you unless you are wanting to take care of some other paint related issues.