I don't have scientific evidence, but it seems like unprotected paint lasts longer than clear coat. (I've been looking at vintage cars lately and I've seen some 40-year-old cars that claim to have the original paint and look great - or at least better than cars with flaking clear coat.)

When the clear coat starts to flake, say when the car gets to be about 10+ years old, it looks pretty bad and the only fix is to repaint. So effectively the life of the paint is the life of the clear coat.

If you could strip the clear coat and re-coat relatively cheaply without affecting the paint, then it would make more sense but if the coat does not last as long as the paint, then it seems to make the situation worse.

I have a thin, clear bra on the Porsche and if that gets dinged by rocks then in 5 years or so, I can replace it for a few hundred bucks and the paint underneath should still be good. Seems like clear coat should be like that.

This post is not intended to a slam of clear coat; it's a question.

Am I wrong, and clear coat will last longer than the unprotected paint or can a car be re-coated without the cost of a full repaint?

I guess that once clear coat does start to flake, the owner has the option to just keep driving as the paint is still OK and protecting the sheet metal, but it looks pretty bad. I see a lot of cars like that.

Thanks

 

Clear coat provides UV protection for paint, and also give it the beautiful shine, like the surface of a lake.

And I dont know what cars you're talking about, my lexus had almost perfect clearcoat and paint, with only one or two minor blemishes after being kept outdoors for 20+ years. I finally repainted it as it needed a little body work.

(seriously, GM cars do lose their clearcoat after 8-10 years.)

 

With red, silver, and other colors of paint that have small, microscopic metallic particles of iron in them, clearcoat definitely provides a lot more protection, a lot longer....that's beyond dispute. Decades ago, with red or silver paint, and, in some cases, other colors as well like the classic Dodge/Plymouth "Plum Crazy" purple, if you didn't keep them religiously waxed or Polyglycoated, those microscopic iron-particles in the paint were exposed to oxygen in the air, causing oxidizing and fading. And, unfortunately, the poor-quality GM acrylic-lacquer factory paint jobs of the 60s, in virtually every color, started to fade early, sometimes a soon as 8-9 months after the car was brand-new. That just doesn't happen today with modern clear-coats.

Some clear-coats, however, did have a fade/flake-off problem in the early 1990s (particularly with Chrysler, Mazda, and Ford), because the EPA ordered manufacturers to dump the old clearcoat paint-procesess and come up with new ones that didn't allow as many paint-vapors to escape into the atmosphere. Until those newer processes were perfected (which took a few years), a number of new vehicles had premature paint-problems, and a lot of repainting was done free or at reduced cost under warranty.

 

My 1999 ES started to flake in 2010, although that car was not garaged.

 

I see you live in CA. Are you in the L.A./SoCal region? That area has notoriously poor air quality, with a lot of trapped pollutants, because it sits in what is essentially a big, unventilated basin where the air near the surface is often trapped by the cool ocean water, mountains to the north and east, and a classic temperature inversion above that prevents vertical mixing. Then, if you are near the coast, you have constant salt-spray in the air which can cause more problems. Exposure to air like this, over the years, even with a good clearcoat layer, could deteriorate the paint a little faster than in other, more paint-friendly areas.

 

The type of paint used back then is hugely different than what we use now.

 

^ This.

Lots of lead based paints that would have good color and durability. not so much for the environmentally friendly side of things.

 

X2. Those old paints are the difference, not the clearcoat. Those older paints required more maintenance, but there is more you can do to bring them back than today's paints. Much thicker too.

 

Your lucky. Lexus, and Subaru had serious issues with soft paint around 2006-2008. I don't know if they solved the problem. Interestingly, my dad's 16 year old J body is still in good condition.

 

Thanks for the response but I live in the SF Bay Area - Silicon Valley. We have much less pollution here than the LA basin and also are protected from the ocean by the coastal range.

 

My brothers GS300 lives outside and is just starting to fade, not even flake. It is a darker Green though, which makes it more liable to fading and clear failure.

I see 4 yo Mitsubishi Galant's with awful flaking paint, but the car I see the most with flaking clear is those lousy Chevy Cobalt's. And they're not even worth it to put in the garage.

 

Yup, the paint on my wife's 2007 RX350 is rubbish. At this point, I've probably got 30 small rust spots. Some are even in places that can't possibly be rock chips, like on the tailgate.

 

Are you sure those rust spots aren't from ferrous particles rusting from salt on the roads? Have you tried claying?

 

Most clearcoats, are MUCH harder than paint. Those old cars you are talking about were probably garaged their entire lives, which is why they are still in good shape. Take two brand new cars, paint them the same color, clearcoat one of them, leave the other with just the base paint, and keep boh cars outside unde the same conditions. I guarantee you the one with the clearcoat will outlast that one without it.

 

No, they're actual holes in the paint. There's probably 1-2mm drop from the surface of the paint down to where the rust is, in the worst cases.

Edit: I shouldn't be so sweeping. SOME of the rust spots are certainly particles sitting on the paint or embedded in the clearcoat. But there are at least 20 that are not.