Additional Clear on a brand new car

F

farngrün

Hi all,

I am picking up my first brand-new car next week. Given that OE paint thickness is so little and rock chips happen so easily, I am considering just scuffing up the hood and front bumper to shoot 2-3 additional coats of Universal Clear on them, before they ever get the chance to be damaged.

Good idea? Bad idea? I can't think of anything that would really be detrimental about it, and since it costs me so little and helps prevent damage to the color coat in the future, I'm leaning towards good idea.
 
I spend about ten hours a day on the road and I can't believe how bad new cars look. How do collision guys match that crap?
 
I suspect they just adjust their gun to shoot with a ton of peel. Must make for an easy job if you're not worried about shooting poor quality, tbh.

The main motivation here is to make the coating a bit more resilient to damage, but that's another reason I want to make the clear a bit thicker - so i can flatten it down a bit. There's a lot of peel. It's all consistent, of course, so if the peel doesn't bother you it's no biggie, but my other cars have been painted by me and they just look *worlds* better.
 
It'll work nicely if you do it right. Meaning take off as much as you can, mirrors, belt mouldings, (depending on the vehicle these are easily damaged), door handles,(count on taking off at least the front door panels to access the mirrors) front and rear bumper covers (if you are going to paint the covers you'll want to remove as much of the plastic as you can, and the foglights if equipped). Headlights and tail lights should also be removed. Any decals and emblems are gonna look like crap if you tape them, they need to go too. Chances are you'll have to replace some of those rather than simply retape them. Doing it right means a lot of work and some skill when it comes to taping to ensure that the re-clear will be as seamless as possible. Not something you are going to knockout in a weekend.
 
Yeah, I actually just finished an all-over and in thinking about how to do the body i decided to... not. I'm going to do the front bumper and hood to protect against rock chips. But an all-over +cut/buff is too much work, i think, for this car. The sides and rear are not nearly as prone to damage, so i'll fix stuff as it comes.
 
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