Yeah, here it's not so much rock chips that are a problem, as being continually blasted with a lot of UV. Some areas also see cycles of rain, sun, rain, sun that can't be good for paint.
For the next time I buy a car, I'm wondering if it's better to attempt to head it off ahead of time with getting a film put on it on the day I pick up the car ($$$!), or just put money aside for a respray down the line and accept that this is just a thing here.
On mine, it was the bonnet that started go go first - it started to get cloudy at around the 5-6 year mark across a really large potion all at once, and none of the initial area had any other damage. No amount of detailing helped. The clearcoat initially started detaching from the paint below in a few cases, then those areas opened up, at which point it was done. The horizontal part of the back hatch followed, along with the areas around the belt molding, the little metal area in the roof, etc.
Since it was a cheap car (~$20k after all fees and taxes in 2005) and since it's a really common thing here, I never really felt compelled to do anything about it in terms of a respray. And once it really started to go, I basically stopped caring, washing it a handful of times a year instead of at the weekends. Having a beater is oddly liberating.
Despite all of its other problems, rust hasn't been a thing here. Mine has spent its life parked at home outside just under a mile from the ocean, and it basically has none. It looks every bit its 20 years in terms of paint, but underneath it's clean as hell. I'm used to cars rotting out from the salt in winter, which we obviously don't get here, but I would have assumed that the sea spray would have a bigger effect.
Anecdotally, it appears that Toyotas that are worse than the likes of Honda or Subaru for this. My neighbour has a Corolla that's about 6 years old, and his is already done. He already has major bubbling on the bonnet, roof, boot, fenders and doors at the belt molding. I've also seen a lot of other models of similar ages (judging by the licence plates) with similar problems.
My wife's CR-V was bought a bit before his car, is a similar boring dark grey, and has none of those problems.
And generally, lighter colours appear to do better over time than darker ones. Not a surprise, but it kind of backs up the sun damage theory.
For the next time I buy a car, I'm wondering if it's better to attempt to head it off ahead of time with getting a film put on it on the day I pick up the car ($$$!), or just put money aside for a respray down the line and accept that this is just a thing here.
On mine, it was the bonnet that started go go first - it started to get cloudy at around the 5-6 year mark across a really large potion all at once, and none of the initial area had any other damage. No amount of detailing helped. The clearcoat initially started detaching from the paint below in a few cases, then those areas opened up, at which point it was done. The horizontal part of the back hatch followed, along with the areas around the belt molding, the little metal area in the roof, etc.
Since it was a cheap car (~$20k after all fees and taxes in 2005) and since it's a really common thing here, I never really felt compelled to do anything about it in terms of a respray. And once it really started to go, I basically stopped caring, washing it a handful of times a year instead of at the weekends. Having a beater is oddly liberating.
Despite all of its other problems, rust hasn't been a thing here. Mine has spent its life parked at home outside just under a mile from the ocean, and it basically has none. It looks every bit its 20 years in terms of paint, but underneath it's clean as hell. I'm used to cars rotting out from the salt in winter, which we obviously don't get here, but I would have assumed that the sea spray would have a bigger effect.
Anecdotally, it appears that Toyotas that are worse than the likes of Honda or Subaru for this. My neighbour has a Corolla that's about 6 years old, and his is already done. He already has major bubbling on the bonnet, roof, boot, fenders and doors at the belt molding. I've also seen a lot of other models of similar ages (judging by the licence plates) with similar problems.
My wife's CR-V was bought a bit before his car, is a similar boring dark grey, and has none of those problems.
And generally, lighter colours appear to do better over time than darker ones. Not a surprise, but it kind of backs up the sun damage theory.
Last edited:
![:\](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/civis/data/assets/smilies/slash-1x.png "Slash :\")
