shadow

I have 99 black gs300 and i was wondering with this color not being clearcoated is it easier to pick up scratches more than a black with clearcoat?

Lexmexico

I cannot speak for the GS, but my black 99 RX used to get scratches all the time due to the lack of clearcoat. Problem was the fact that in Mexico City most of the water contains some level of volcanic ash (unless you have a filter). The local automatic car wash guy could not figure out why people kept complaining about scratches on certain cars since it was brushless and finally figured out it was the water.

I recently had my vehicle repainted with Dupont, and more scratches.

Guitarman

The paints are the same whether they're clearcoated or not. In other words, they're both urethane enamel, it's just that the clear is urethane with no pigment. The color comes from the basecoat underneath.

One thing you'll find; when a black or dark color car with clearcoat is scratched-the scratch will appear white, because that's the color the clear changes to when it's abraded / scratched or sanded. When a non clear black is scratched-the scratch is just black (as long as it didn't go deeper than the paint and into the primer or metal). In other words-a clearcoated car will often show scratches more redily as they appear the whitish color.

But yeah, same type of paint either way, one (the clear) just has no pigment in the top layer. Cheers.