skiptomylo

I've noticed that my friends have cars where the roof is fading away and starting to chip off chunks of paint. My car is a 1996 and I wanted to know if there were any products that I could use to keep it lasting a long time. I cleaned it thoroughly and just waxed it recently. Any input would be great!

skiptomylo

I'm pretty sure my car has been well taken care of (bought it used), but the top is feeling kind of thin. Maybe the clearcoat is wearing down?

Guitarman

There is honestly no way to "feel" the thickness of your paint, you just can't tell anything that way, outside how smooth your paint is.

The best thing you can do is to keep wax or a sealant on the car continuously. Outside of that, the only other longevity insurance would be to keep it out of the sun and rain. Not always possible for most of us, but it would help the paint stay healthy in it's old age.

Just wax it and keep it clayed etc.

skiptomylo

What sealants would you recommend for the roof?

Guitarman

Zaino sealants have UV40 in them, but if you want an easily accessible and easy to use sealant, get Meguiar's NXT. Apply it every month or two to be certain you always have some on there, and you'll be fine.

Any sealant will suffice, it gets subjective after that.

biglexass

USE SUNSCREEN or you can do what i do.if i park my car longer then 2 hours i put a car cover on it

skiptomylo

i read somewhere and they suggested to polish it. Would anybody else recommend that?

Guitarman

Anytime you use abrasives (and a polish is an abrasive) then you're removing paint. It's that simple.

Polishing doesn't remove but very little paint, but if your goal here is to maintain the longevity of the paint and you're worried about the paint thickness, and it looks glossy already, then leave it be.

You only want to polish to bring the gloss up or remove swirls/scratches. If none of those are your problem, then leave the abrasives out of the equation until you do.

Cheers.

skiptomylo

hmm. I think i mispoke ealier. The paint isn't so much thinning, its more dull. I dont have a buffer, so I have to do everything by hand. Can I still polish by hand? Would Meguiar's Paint Cleaner be a good alternative?

Guitarman

Well yes, that makes all the difference in the world!

You can use the Meguiar's paint cleaner, or any fine to medium grit polish. By hand is fine. I know many people that still get fantastic results by hand.

Good luck!

skiptomylo

Awesome. One thing I don't get though. I've heard that polishing removes some paint. If that's true, what happens to my clearcoat?

Guitarman

Yes, lol, I was the one that just told you that a couple posts ago...

Well..when you polish, some of the clear (microscopically) comes off on your cloth / bonnet.
It will take a LOT of polishing to remove enough to be concerned, but basically you are freshening the paint by abrading the top surface of it.

Make sense?

skiptomylo

yea I remember you telling me about that and I also read it somewhere else. What I don't get is if I'm removing some of my paint, does that mean that all of my clear coat is gone? I thought that clear coat was a layer on top of the paint.