Catherine has a year old MGF Steptronic in Tahiti (dark) Blue.
It is a well loved second car and when not in it's garage has covered only 3500 careful miles in west Scotland.
Nearly every panel has fine, visible scratches in the laquer layer yet the car is rarely left unattended in a car park and is not subject to unusual attacks by road grit and scratchy hedges.
(the car is carefully washed after flooding with water with a new sponge. Autoglym shampoo and polish is used.)
The car has been seen by the bodyshop of a Ford dealer (Rover don't want to know) who check out the paint as being 146 microns thick and therefore regarded as applied correctly.
HJ does not have any other answer but recommends careful application of Autoglym "Extra Gloss Protection".
Does anyone have a similar experience with dark metalics? Can we approach any other "paint experts"? Who can do a "scratch test" to check laquer hardness?
Patrick.
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unlike HJ I always use household furniture polish (aerosol)as it is 100% non abrasive and leaves a wonderful shine.Maybe it is something in the water ,when I lived in Wick I often felt unsteady on my feet after drinking the water or maybe it was caused by the addatives. Some of the laquers used are definitely softer due to the fact that they must be water based(EU directive)my DB c class was resprayed with laquer twice for the very same reasons. As a matter of interest who makes mgf sports cars now?
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Patrick,
I wonder if these scratches go through to the colour/primer coats at all?
Most of the dark metallic cars I look after (but usually three years old+) seem to have this to some extent. You just need to catch the panels at a certain angle and they are a mass of fine scratches.
My own older Citroen in mid metallic blue suffers this as well, the lightest touch from kids with....well anything really......leaves a slight "milky" looking scratch/mark in the top layer.
Having said that your car seems to have suffered a great deal for one cared for so much.
We have another older car in dark metallic gren that has been sprayed in some areas a few years ago. The laquer coat of this work is obviously thick, perhaps to a near gungy extent in places, but the fine scratches are not so evident on those re-painted panels.
David
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Back in the 80's a colleague's wife thought she'd do him a favour and used aerosol furniture polish on his RS Turbo - ate the paint. Full respray and new wife required (honestly!!!). Always thought he was a bit of a pr*t but I could see his point on that one.
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I have had three dark blue cars and, at first, the fine surface scratches were a big concern as I was convinced the paint was faulty. You could even "scratch" the paint with your finger. Having had three cars and carefully inspecting every dark blue car I saw, I concluded that it is just a characteristic of the colour. It looks great but shows every scratch, mark and blemish. Ultimately, I stopped washing it so often! I now drive a silver car. I'm sure it has the same number of surface scratches but you just can't see them.
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The best thing to do with a dark blue car you are already doing.
Never ever put a dark blue car through a car wash, it scratches the lacquer and shows up as light blue. A jet wash is acceptable but take your own sponge, the brushes supplied tend to have grit in them.
The primer colour for dark blue, oddly is white! So any stonechips are obvious. Get a touch up brush from Rover, they usually have all colours in stock and they are usually an excellent match. Put the touch up paint on in several applications building up layers. Use a fine artists brush as they only hold a small amount of paint. Leave it a couple of days depending on weather and then use a AutoGlym Paint Restorer to feather it in. It's not perfect to close inspection but looks fine from a few feet away ;)
All I can recommend to remove lacquer scratches is top to tail application of AutoGlym paint restorer. However, there are limits to the number of times this can be done.
As for protecting the paintwork, two coats of wax and yes, extra gloss protection does the business. A lot of elbow grease but it works for me.
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I have a 1998 Rover 620 in Oxford Blue. Two weeks afeter we bought it second hand this spring we took it to Jersey on business. On the way back, we had to go through a compulsory car wash with detergent for FMD precautions (ludicrous to do it when leaving the island, surely!). I was appalled to see the amount of damage done - thin longitudinal scratches all over the car, just as you describe.
Fortunately a wash with Autoglym Shampoo followed by Super Resin polish and Extra Gloss (2 coats) covered every stratch, so did not have to sue for a respray!
It seems that light scratches are a fact of life with dark colours, but the Autoglym treatment seems to do the trick.
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Thanks for all the replies and for the useful tips.
I think we will just stop touching the damn thing.
Patrick.
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