Last night we had a pretty hard rain (big deal). So I went out this am and found 3 bubbles on my hood. It appears that there were imperfections on the hood before they put on the clear coat & the rain brought them up??? I'm going 2 the dealer 2morrow, but for now here is a shot of 1 of them now that its dry...(and no its not bird-poo & besides the discoloration on the left is now appearing in streaks on the whole right side if the hood.)

 

is it possible the sea breeze and salt contribute to the degradation of clearcoat?

 

Not in 4 monthes I'd hope. Besides I failed to mention my dealer makes you take the cars w/ this "xilinx"? protective coat thats warrantied for 5 years. Plus the spots are under the coat and are very visible to the naked eye (but not before today.)

 

Wow, does that ever suck! Good thing you're covered by one, if not two clearcoat warranties.

 

How is it remotely possible that rain could cause that? The streaking looks like someone wiped something on the finish.

 

Actually I said that I noticed it after the rain, not that the rain did it. (Maybe it was the straw...) What I said is that I think there were imperfections during the clearcoat process. Its hard to see from the pic's but w/ your eye you can tell these spots are coming up, not from something on them. The smear you see in the 1st shot was still bubbling up when I saw it and I touched it to see what the heck it was, thus it smeared. This dry bubble was untouched...

 

Was this before or after the earthquake(s)? Which island are you on, I assume Oahu?

It looks like something acidic has been dumped on it. Are you under a tree that either dumps saps or has birds in them? Were there any volcanic releases at the time of the earthquake?

 

The rain part now makes sense but imperfections during the clearcoat process does not. I could see some hazing under the clearcoat or physical bubbling but smears and streaks don't seem possible. Maybe they re-cleared the car @ port because of damage? FWIW, I had a problem that I was initially quite upset about but it turned out to be nothing (not saying that your problem is nothing, those bubbled areas look terrible). My 2007 GL450 is obsidian black which is a metallic black with a clearcoat. When I brought it home, it had a couple of hazy spots that looked like they were under the clearcoat. I even called my dealership and they told me that it happens because the entire car is wrapped in sticky white plastic during shipment and moisture causes the haze. I hit the spots with some Mezerna Final Polish II and a Porter Cable random orbit polisher and the spots were gone. The wierd thing is that I could have sworn that the spots were under the clearcoat.

Take it to a good detail shop and see what they say.

 

"Was this before or after the earthquake(s)? Which island are you on, I assume Oahu?

It looks like something acidic has been dumped on it. Are you under a tree that either dumps saps or has birds in them? Were there any volcanic releases at the time of the earthquake? "


Well I'm leaving for the dealers now, I'll let you all know what they have to say later. And I live on Maui and we shook pretty good. But nothing volcanic and after 4 hrs we had power and life was back to normal.

 

Stan;

For a possible Lexus resolution refer to the 2nd generation IS 350 forum, thread: "Paint issues 'Pebble Finish' blue onyx paint defect" on page 4 of the forum. Seems that Lexus replaced the car. I also recall reading another similar thread with the same resolution again on the IS 350 forum. Hope this helps. Please post result.
NGG

 

they would replace a whole car for paint defect? i guess they could replace his hood in this case. I would scream for a free extended warranty too.

 

Well no 1 is sure what happened, but they agreed the xlinx warranty covers it and they are going to repaint the hood. After we washed it, it didn't look as bad either. And as long as they fix the problem I don't feel right asking for more. Besides the paint job is covered another 55 months so...