Five or so nickel-sized areas of micro-cracks in the hood clearcoat. Any advice to hide and stop any further damage?

 

thats a bummer, you mines well repaint the hood.

 

It's called "checking of the clear coat." Good news is, it's the clear coat. Some fine sanding will make it go down. Bad news, the clear coat will need to be reapplied which will require a whole panel spray.

Randy B

 

Interesting just 5 and all of teardrop shape. Like something was spilled on it that sucked the life from it.
Something real runny would leave a different pattern. That was like a gell of some kind. Any home projects run wild or something crazy where parked at work?

As stated above the fix is repaint. Do to the small area, you might mask neatly around one, sand gently with 1000 grit and apply multiple thin layers of clear. Buy a car color match and use the clear that comes with it. If it comes out well enough, do the others. Just a thought.

 

I'd bet whatever got on there happened while the car was traveling down the road. The pattern on all the "drops" are identical and I'd also bet that the tail points toward the windshield. If the car was stationary the pattern would have been in a circle. I'd check the roof and trunk to see if anything else got hit.

As far as a repair I'd probably try removing the affected areas with a a polishing compound being careful to try to leave the base coat intact and then recoat the areas with the clearcoat. Blending it in with the surrounding area and then polishing it after it was thoroughly cured...

 

I just bought the car last week, and this was hidden. It's only really apparent in the right sunlight. They don't "point" to the windshield, so I don't know what could have caused it. I agree, it does look like something got on it though. If I could prevent it from getting worse, I could live with it. I ordered this from amazon, I'll report back how it works.

 

One of the other cars I'd parked under a tree that was a spot for birds to hang out. Nearby there was a fruit orchard with varying acidic fruits growing which was a great place for the birds to get eats. One the birds had eaten what looked to be blueberries and did the duty on the hood. Only those bluish-purple droppings caused the clear to crack similar to yours. I cleaned it best as I could and left it. It didn't deteriorate any further because it was at a very superficial level. The spots on yours look similar and my suggestion would be to leave it. You may go into the actual color base after rubbing-working on that area. Or you could take it to a trusted body shop for their opinion.

 

You might want to take it to a good detail shop or sympathetic body shop. They may be able to clean it up so that it is far less noticeable.for a reasonable price.

 

Assuming the paint layer is in good shape I'd find someone to shoot a new layer of clear coat on the hood and leave the paint alone. If you can find a good paint guy they should be able to sand down the hood clear coat layer enough to minimize the cracks and then shoot a new layer of clear coat on the hood. If you find a good independent or some body and paint guy that does work on the side you may be able to get the hood sanded and clear-coated for $200 or so.

Sanding down and repaint and re-clear coat is likely a $700-1000 job depending on where you live.

 

Something has eaten the clear up and fried it up. What you don't know is if its made it through to the basecoat, which my guess is that it has. Being a car painter myself, its a case of sanding it back to sound paint and spraying fresh colour and clear. Depending on how deep your pockets are it might be wise to get the whole front end repainted, so bumper and bonnet reconditioned and blend the colour through the guards, otherwise if the damage is far enough away from the edge of the panel, you can just sand the damage out and fade the colour out within the confines of the bonnet. It'll look the part afterwards either way, but there's no escaping the fact that you need paint work done