Fading paint advice

[Rodddimus]

I have a 350i that has got a pretty bad red paint job to be fair in terms of finish but its nice and bright so from a few feet i can live with it but what i have noticed recently is that the paint is starting to fade (go whiteish) on the bonnet in particular.

I have had to have the car under a cover for a few weeks due to lack of garage space the car now lives in the garage but ive never owned a TVR before and im not sure the best way to remedy the situation

i did try a small amount of poor boys rubbing compound didnt seem to make much difference and i did notice it left red paint on the applicator so i stopped

any advice

[Granturadriver]

The problem is that red is the color with the most color pigments. Other colors do not have as many color pigments. The color pigments fade due to the sun. That's why you see faded paint especially often on red cars. You can't restore that, because you can't get color pigments into the paint.

So it helps only to protect the paint from sunlight and spreading or to repaint.

[LLantrisant]

long time ago i owned a alfa romeo which was restored & repainted. even the paintwork was practicaly new, after a rain-shower , follwed by sun i had white marks in form of the former water-drops...so the water-drops acted like a lens and damaged the paintwork.

my first Lotus Eclat (black paint) was stored 2 weeks oustside under cover, until i found a garage.
due to the humidity in combination with the sun, the former shiny black paintwork developped some white clouds and practically the paintwork was damged to a stage were i could not bring it back to its former glory.

conclusion: NEVER ever i will store a car oustide under a cover.

[NicBowman]

Red is the worst. If you have red on your cloth, that may be good news. You can achieve some results occasionally by cutting through the upper paint layers to reveal better paint below. Try some T Cut scratch remover. Not to be confused with conventional T Cut.

Given it is already knackered, some minor risk of cutting back is worth it. It takes ages to polish your paint right off, even with this kind of cutting agent.

Best


Nic

[Belle427]

Maybe take it to a body shop to see if they can machine polish it back to life as doing it by hand is almost impossible.
Failing that buy yourself a DA polisher and have a go, they are a fantastic tool to have.

[Big Al.]

Rodddimus said:

I have a 350i that has got a pretty bad red paint job to be fair in terms of finish but its nice and bright so from a few feet i can live with it but what i have noticed recently is that the paint is starting to fade (go whiteish) on the bonnet in particular.

I have had to have the car under a cover for a few weeks due to lack of garage space the car now lives in the garage but ive never owned a TVR before and im not sure the best way to remedy the situation

i did try a small amount of poor boys rubbing compound didnt seem to make much difference and i did notice it left red paint on the applicator so i stopped

any advice

What is the actual colour? If it's Rosso Pearl then like my Tuscan it will eventually end up pink. No amount of cutting back or polishing made any difference.