New black paint gone "milky"
New black paint gone "milky"
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Discussion

A2Z

Original Poster:

1,080 posts

248 months

Wednesday 26th March 2008
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A couple of weeks ago I got my black mondeo back from the bodyshop after an accident repair (new door and respray). All appeared good.

Washing the car at the weekend and the new paint has turned patchy and has a milky haze.

Called the bodyshop who are collecting the car to inspect / rectify. They said I wasn't the first to complain of this and they are hauling in the paint manufacturer next week. They say it's due to modern water based paints and also possibly the weather (I drove home in the rain, car is parked outside and have probably driven 600 miles in the intervening period). The body shop are a large outfit, VBRA certified so not a cack handed back street place.

The bodyshop seem decent and they are trying hard to sort this out but I was more interested in why this happened.

Magic919

14,128 posts

223 months

Wednesday 26th March 2008
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Be useful to post some pics. I'm sure you'll get advice.

V8covin

9,193 posts

215 months

Wednesday 26th March 2008
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Sounds like the clear has gone flat,a fairly common problem with fresh paint especially with dark colours.... they tend to have more gloss so it is more noticeable.

The bodyshop will probably run the polisher over it and it will be as good as new again.

autobodytechnic

26 posts

226 months

Thursday 27th March 2008
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sounds like it was'nt polihed right!

phumy

5,812 posts

259 months

Friday 28th March 2008
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If its due to the weather then its probably what they term as "bloom", i think its something to do with the moisture content in the surrounding air when the car is sprayed. That was fairly common complaint during the days of cellulose, i think.

Anatol

1,392 posts

256 months

Friday 28th March 2008
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Sounds very like moisture bloom.

The incompletely-cured clearcoat absorbs humidity, and this is the result. Provided it's done in time (before the clear completely sets, trapping the moisture permanently) thoroughly baking the repair usually drives the moisture out and sorts the problem without rework.

Blaming waterborne paint is very likely to be an attempt to mislead you - tread carefully around any shop using this line.

HTH

Tol

PrestigePaint

13 posts

215 months

Saturday 29th March 2008
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Blooming is a reasonably common problem with clearcoats and laquers. In short, the laquer has trapped some moisture as it hardens. With solvent based paints it usually occurs when the weather is damp and a panel is not heated sufficiently after painting and laquering. With modern water based paints, it can happen if the basecoat isn't dried completely before laquering.

It may be worth your while trying to gently heat the affected area with a heat gun or a space heater. Quite often this is all that's needed to drive out the moisture. Just be sure not to concentrate too much heat in one place, and if it doesn't seem to make a difference within a couple of minutes, stop and leave it for the bodyshop.

V8covin

9,193 posts

215 months

Sunday 30th March 2008
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I've been using 2K products for the last 15 years and have NEVER seen blooming in clearcoat.

Disco_Biscuit

837 posts

216 months

Monday 31st March 2008
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Could be that they waxed the panels before the paint had hardened properly, i was told by my bodyshop not to wax for 4 weeks to make sure the paint was hard after they painted my bonnet black, polishing with a wax free product was fine, they said the wax gets absorbered into the paint causing it to go milky.