Bug Acid on Paint

[OneLessThing]

I bought my 2017 LC about a year ago and working to correct some of the maintenance errors from owner #1.

Apparently she never once washed the car, because it looks like the acid from decaying bugs has eaten into the clear coat on the hood.

It is very visible, but barely rough to the finger. The detail guy tried to clay bar it for a while with no success. The body shop said they couldn't do anything but repaint the entire hood.

Any suggestions on how to restore the paint?

 

[doru]

Clay bar is the first step so you take away the gross stuff that is on *top* sticking to the clear coat but. Clay bar does not fix the clear coat.
Your clear is damaged. To fix it you need polishing and maybe wet sanding depending on the depth of that damage. All this stuff is not hard but require some knowledge and experience to do it efficiently and safely (for the paint). BUT if you have time you can try it yourself - it will just take much longer time and you'll need to buy the tools and materials. The internet is full of videos about how to do all kind of paint fixing.

Very compress it's like this:
1. park in the shade and wash & dry
2. clay bar
3. asses paint thickness (it should be full 6mil from factory on your case) - if too thin you have to be careful or just go the repaint route.
4. asses damage depth - you may have to try some test like the finger nail, some local polishing with different compounds and pads
5. decide on the fix - depending on the damage you may be good with a regular polish, a heavy cut polish, wet sanding, in the order from less aggressive to the most aggressive.
6. Use the decided method to fix the paint
7. finishing polish & wax

The tricky ones are #3 to #5.
For #3 you can buy a tool on amazon an measure.
For #4&#5 you need some experience or watching a lot of videos to educate yourself.

Once the fix is decided you just do the work that is not complicated if you have the tools.

Your detail guy should have known all about that and not just try to clay bar it before throwing his hands up. Maybe you need a better detail shop?

Good luck!

 

[OneLessThing]

Clay bar is the first step so you take away the gross stuff that is on *top* sticking to the clear coat but. Clay bar does not fix the clear coat.
Your clear is damaged. To fix it you need polishing and maybe wet sanding depending on the depth of that damage. All this stuff is not hard but require some knowledge and experience to do it efficiently and safely (for the paint). BUT if you have time you can try it yourself - it will just take much longer time and you'll need to buy the tools and materials. The internet is full of videos about how to do all kind of paint fixing.

Very compress it's like this:
1. park in the shade and wash & dry
2. clay bar
3. asses paint thickness (it should be full 6mil from factory on your case) - if too thin you have to be careful or just go the repaint route.
4. asses damage depth - you may have to try some test like the finger nail, some local polishing with different compounds and pads
5. decide on the fix - depending on the damage you may be good with a regular polish, a heavy cut polish, wet sanding, in the order from less aggressive to the most aggressive.

The tricky ones are #3 and #4.
For #3 you can buy a tool on amazon an measure.
For #4 you need some experience or watching a lot of videos to educate yourself.

Once the fix is decided you just do the work that is not complicated if you have the tools.

Your detail guy should have known all about that and not just try to clay bar it before throwing his hands up. Maybe you need a better detail shop?

Good luck!

I'm more than happy to hire someone for this job and not screw it up myself.

What kind of person am I looking to hire? Bonus if you know a great person in ATL to do it.

 

[skmaynard1]

Was that a Florida truck by any chance? It looks like "Love Bug" damage, and it happens in days not years. It is unfortunately into the clear coat and the only chance of saving is buffing and polishing. It will at least make it look acceptable and delay or prevent you from having to paint it.

 

[OneLessThing]

Was that a Florida truck by any chance? It looks like "Love Bug" damage, and it happens in days not years. It is unfortunately into the clear coat and the only chance of saving is buffing and polishing. It will at least make it look acceptable and delay or prevent you from having to paint it.

It was a North Florida car, yes.

Well that's good to know the owner wasn't a total putz.

 

[doru]

You are looking for a knowledge auto detail shop that does "paint correction". Go to dealers like BMW, Mercedes or Lexus and ask what shops do they use.
I'm far way from AT.

 

[Fisher23]

To remove that bug or sap, and having experienced it...

Yellow soft sponge and pore some rubbing alcohol on it and very gently rub it till you see a puddle of alcohol around the mark. The let it sit 5 minutes and is dissolved so you can just wipe it off.

Once it has gone through the paint like that though .. the only option is repaint it and clear coat it. The paint is gone.

You can touch it up but you will see the touch up when you get close.

 

[bloc]

I would have it corrected then consider PPF over the top. Sometimes it can hide stuff like this, especially if the damage is mitigated somewhat by correction.