Paint fade

[Hallraker]

I had some bodywork done on my car last winter after an old man slammed into
my Subie. I can hardly believe this myself, but I finally noticed that they
did an awful job matching the new paint to the old paint, the newly painted
panels are the same color as the metal on the inside of the car that has
never seen the light of day, while my old paint is looking more and more
pink these days. The car is nearly 10 years old and I'm on the eve of
160,000 miles at this point, so I'm not going to make a big stink about it,
but I'm wondering if there is some sort of product out there like a wax or
something that might help to reduce the abrupt transition in paint color
from the old panels to the new ones.

Thanks,
-Matt

 

[null_pointer]

I had some bodywork done on my car last winter after an old man slammed into
my Subie. I can hardly believe this myself, but I finally noticed that they
did an awful job matching the new paint to the old paint, the newly painted
panels are the same color as the metal on the inside of the car that has
never seen the light of day, while my old paint is looking more and more
pink these days. The car is nearly 10 years old and I'm on the eve of
160,000 miles at this point, so I'm not going to make a big stink about it,
but I'm wondering if there is some sort of product out there like a wax or
something that might help to reduce the abrupt transition in paint color
from the old panels to the new ones.

Thanks,
-Matt

I used to buy old cars off of my customers during the 70's and 80's
and keep them to fix up when regular business got slow. Being in
sunny SoCal, they were often faded and had "powdery" paint jobs
I never painted a single one: I used a fine polishing compound or a
"cleaner wax" depending on how ugly it was. It took a lot of elbow
grease, but they mostly looked real nice afterwards.
A word of caution: Power buffers can be too aggressive and wear
through damaged paint before you know it. Do this by hand...

 

[WRXtreme]

I used to buy old cars off of my customers during the 70's and 80's
and keep them to fix up when regular business got slow. Being in
sunny SoCal, they were often faded and had "powdery" paint jobs
I never painted a single one: I used a fine polishing compound or a
"cleaner wax" depending on how ugly it was. It took a lot of elbow
grease, but they mostly looked real nice afterwards.
A word of caution: Power buffers can be too aggressive and wear
through damaged paint before you know it. Do this by hand...

I couldn't agree more with this post. Use a good wash/cleaner/polisher/wax
combination and you may be amazed at how well your car may look. I
personally use Meguiars brand of car cleaning supplies. Use a good car wash
solution first of all, do not, I repeat DO NOT use dishsoap, use something
designed for cars. Then there are some "Cleaner" type solutions that work
well for getting waterspots, embedded grime and other imperfections out of
the paint. Next use a good polish, this is what will really make your car
shine to its fullest potential. Then apply a good wax that has Carnauba in
it to protect the paint. As was discussed in the previous post use your
hand to apply and remove these products, an orbital buffer may work ok as it
doesn't really have the speed to burn through your paint. The problem with
buffers is that they really only work well for spreading the wax, elbow
grease will do a much better job of actually shining up the car.