Restore Faded Car Paint – HOW TO
Old black cars, kept outdoors, in Greece, have it tough under the baking sun. In this article I’ll show you the method I came up with (after trying many, many different ways) to restore faded car paint to a mirror finish.
Faded Paint Restoration – Basics
The car in question is a 2002 Black Octavia RS (MK4 Golf GTI chassis). The car is outside all year round in the baking sun and this takes it’s toll. Fortunately the clear coat is not cracking. If your paint/clear coat has started to crack then it’s probably too far gone.
Faded Car Paint Before
Photo above shows the starting point of the faded paint. It looks bad. Fortunately we don’t seem to have any holes in the clear coat. The damage seems to be limited to the clear coat and we just have a fading problem.
Stage 1 – Faded Paint Restore
The process is straightforward. Certainly more straightforward than the other methods I tried before settling on this.
First of all we clean the bonnet/hood. We want it as clean as possible. Use proper shampoo for cars.
Second make sure it is completely dry before starting the next step. This is important, starting the process on a wet bonnet makes the whole job take much longer as well as making the results sub standard.
Step 3 – Rubbing Compound
The process is like this.
We put a minimum amount of compound on the foam pad and go to town on the bonnet. Put a reasonable amount of force on the pad, nothing to extreme. Cover the whole bonnet.
Wait for the compound to dry and rub off with a thick microfibre towel (right of photo).
When it’s dry it comes of easily and the finish is good.
If I wipe too early the towel gets clogged and the finish is miserable because the compound residue doesn’t come off. Be patient.
The compound I use might be expensive but it does a great job and it last along time. For the job it does, I think it’s cheap.
And basically we repeat this process over and over again until we get the final finish we want.
Process will be slow, probably.
The key here is not to rub more than we need to.
You can used a machine polisher if you want but again, I think a lot of light rubbing coats is the way to go, machine polisher or not.
After the third coat the improvement is big but I can still see the reflection is not like a mirror and that’s what I’m going for.
There are no shortcuts here.
We have to get the hood colour to what we want to achieve as a final result with the rubbing compound.
The wax/ceramic coating won’t finish the job.
Again, what you see after using the rubbing compound is also what you will get after waxing/coating.
On this bonnet there were a few tough spots. I ran over the last bits with a machine polisher with a slow speed. So technically 5 or 6 coats total.
To Repeat
Again, I used the minimum amount of rubbing compound.
A number of reasons for this.
I don’t think there is any reason to use an excessive amount, the results will not be better the more compound used.
Secondly if you use a lot of compound you won’t be able to see the spots you’ve missed.
And thirdly the compound dries much quicker meaning we can get through the job faster.
Let me repeat, your coating/wax won’t get a better finish than the rubbing compound. When I get the paint to where I want it, only then do I apply the ceramic/polymer coating. I use Soft99 Fusso Coat. I’m happy with it.
Finished Product
I think the photos show what I got. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty nice.
If I was prepared to do one more coat of rubbing compound then I could of probably got it perfect but I’m happy as it is.
A huge improvement over where I started.
Restoring Faded Car Paint – Wrapping Up
While we can get excellent results with rubbing compound and Fusso Coat, we have to be realistic of what we are getting and what we can expect going forward. The paint won’t behave like it been freshly painted.
Notes
With that in mind some notes.
Not a permanent solution
If I leave the car in the sun, the paint will fade again. I will add an extra coat of Fusso Coat every few months but if the car has been in the sun for prolonged periods the paint will start to fade again.
In short, this process will not repair the paint permanently.
Looking After It
To look after the paint after it’s been restored, the best solution is to keep it out of the baking sun as often as possible.
In my case, half the day the car will be in shade but for the other half it will be in the direct sun. What I’ve done is buy a “6 layer” car cover.
The body of the car still gets extremely hot even with the cover on but it does seem to make a difference when it come to protecting the paint.
With the cover on it seems to take much longer before the paint will start to fade again.
Other Methods of Restoring Faded Car Paint
I mentioned at the start that I’ve tried many different methods.
Wet Sanding
I even tried wet sanding the bonnet with 1500 to 3000 grit paper. In hindsight, this was completely unnecessary. The rubbing compound I have will do the same job while being much kinder to the clear coat. The only downside with the rubbing compound is it might take longer to get to the mirror finish.
Having said that, it can take quite a lot of effort to get rid of the sandpaper marks with the rubbing compound also.
All in all, I’d highly recommend skipping wet sanding and just use multiple coats of rubbing compound with or without a machine polisher.
When I say I used a machine polisher, what I mean is a angle grinder with adjustable speed and a polishing pad attachment. It’s a low power model from Lidl so I use a very small diameter pad. It works well.
Cleaning
Another thing which is probably obvious to 99.99% of people is to get the body of the car as clean as possible before starting on the rubbing compound. It just makes the process faster and, if the paint is clean, I don’t scratch the paint with the foam pad because of the dirt I’m rubbing on it. Again, obvious to 99.99% of people.
Conclusion
There is no magic bullet. When paint has started to fade it will fade again.
The process I settled on keeps the paint in a better condition for longer.
And using a car cover means I don’t have to do this process so often.
Obviously, if you have a new car or a freshly painted car you’re not going to have to do this.
If you don’t want the hassle of having to do this work every few months (in a sunny country) then refreshing the clear coat is probably the way to go.
If you live in an overcast country then the results of this process could last a lot longer than two months.
If you were wondering if you can get faded car paint back to a mirror finish, then yes it possible, but don’t expect it to last like it would on a freshly painted car.
