The paint on one side of my car has small bubbles coming up in clusters. The bubbles are a bit larger than the head of a pin and it appears in clusters on one side of the car from the front panel to the rear bumper. Does anyone know what's the problem?

My car is a 98 Legacy GT in dark blue. I am in Hong Kong and where I park it at work, it is exposed to long hours in the sunlight and 30+ celcius? Could the paint be getting too hot? If it is, the paint quality must be pretty crap!! It's only coming up on one side which is puzzling as the whole of the car is exposed to the same amount of sunlight. I am only using the usual car cleaner and wax on my car nothing that could cause this. I tried using a wax cleaner and wax on the problem areas but no difference. Does anyone know any way to treat it besides a respray and more importantly, the cause and prevention of it getting worse!!??

There's no point in me going back to the dealers, I got the car second hand, the warranty is expired and the aftersales here are pretty crap anyway.

 

The car may have been in an accident or scratched and the previous owner got it resprayed. If so, which is more than likely, because you say it's only one side, the spraypainter probably hasn't prepared the car properly before spraying. I'm not an expert or a spraypainter and don't know what the preparations should have been. I also think that a respray is the only way to rid of the problem but I may be wrong.

WREXY.

 

Sounds like a bad paint job to me, the bubbles sound like corrosion coming through, the only cure is as wrexy says, a respray, just take it to someone you can trust to do a decent job of it and it should last as long as the car!!!

Tony

 

Sound like some type of micro blistering.....Could be a number of things caused by a bad paint job.

Poor primer, water in the primer or top coat from the compessed air used in the spraying process etc..etc

Are they getting worse or have they always been there.

They could just simply be dirt nibs in the top coat which just require a flat and polish or they could be silicones (fish eyes as people call them) which are small indentations about the size you have described !

Without seeing it, it is hard to help!

mail me with further details for better advice..spectrumpainter@aol.com

Timo

 

Thanks for the replies.

I am definitely sure the problem wasn't there before. Just like you guys, I always take pride in washing and waxing the car by hand and know where every dent and scratch are. I am just surprised about it coming up after I just had a two week holiday in the UK. I don't have a covered parking space and it had been raining non stop for 2 weeks in Hong Kong whilst I was away. I have a cover on the car which obviously got wet and meant the car was covered in a soaking wet cloth for two weeks....talk about acid rain or what!!

I suppose I will just have to take it to a local garage and hope it doesn't get worse, or it will get expensive!