Clearcoat issue.

Rando

Unfortunately I made a boo-boo and when powerwashing bugs off my 320S, brought some clear-coat with it. Huge mistake. The power washer has never done anything like this to my car. Does anyone have recommendations for clear-coat repair?

Thanks in advance.
- Rando

N7SHG_Ham

Repaint. A body shop may be able to prep and shoot it properly where it blends in.

ScottG

I'm resurrecting this discussion as I experienced the same thing this weekend after aggressively attacking some tree sap with my pressure washer.

Without giving it much thought, I trimmed off any flaky bits and oversprayed the whole area with some automotive clear coat. I'm hoping this will protect the exposed aluminum and help seal the edges against further peeling. It shows a bit in places where the sheen is uneven--I may try to blend it in a little better in the spring with some clear coat rubbing compound and a good coat of wax.

I can live with it if the only better solution is costly body shop work. However, I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this--and what you did about it--since this discussion was first posted.

I confess I wash my T@B once a year and have never waxed it in eight seasons. Regardless, the clear coat was flawless up until yesterday. In hindsight, I'd advocate for occasional waxing if only to facilitate the removal of sap and other tenacious deposits.

 

 

techietab

Yikes. Bought my 2022 320S used and while the interior was immaculate, it clearly had a rough time outdoors in the short time before it got to me. Had to hit it pretty heavily with a power washer to get grime off the exterior, but thankfully didn't strip any clear coat.

I do, however, have a TON of accumulated black particles from atmospheric fallout causing streaks and patches of light grey in my clear coat. I've managed to claybar off maybe 80% of it from the worst areas where it accumulated on the trim, but there's still residual junk left over. My next attempt at removal is going to be to hit a small area with a rotary buffer + some automotive wax I have had good results with on my other vehicles (Chemical Guys Butter Wet Wax), but if that fails I'm probably going to give up and contract a professional detailer to see if they can salvage the paint job. If not...I might live with it, or I might look into seeing if I could get a body shop to strip and repaint and coat the aluminum.

Denny16

Just try some WD40 first on the streaks, this removed similar blackish streaks from the side of our TaB. I followed the WD 40 with a good auto wash solution and waxed it with 3M Fiberglass boat wax.  Worked great.
 Cheers 

techietab

@Denny16 I'll have to give that a try tomorrow...will report back.

Bayliss

I use Goo-Gone to remove tree sap.  I also wax my trailer twice a year.  So far, so good.  Looks like new.