[lynx]

If I leave my car in the open sun for about 8 hours a day, six days a week, will it dull-out the bright metallic red Hyundai paint on my car?

Have you noticed it on your cars? If so, after how long?

[ALSUDA]

Which one has more life - Metalic paint or Non-metalic?

in Swift red color is non metalic & all say it looses it shine faster than other metalic colors. Is it true?

[aaggoswami]

IIRC, its the metallic color that will not fade out fast. Our Baleno still look new and it had Rs. 1700 MGA cover for only one month. Rest it lies in open but the color fade is almost not present. The car was bought in Oct 2005.
And its the non metallic color that will fade out fast.

Correct me if I am wrong and also I wish to upgarde myself on this.

[esteem_lover]

The clear coat will start eroding which is not good for the paint. Yes, the metallic paint will hold on a lot longer than non metallic

[nanopano]

Prolonged exposure to sun will remove lustre from all kinds of car paint. Sunlight is most damaging to car paint.

[Raccoon]

Not only paint, but everything else like tyres, plastic parts etc., will suffer...

[loving_alaap]

IMO the quality of metallic paint now-a-days is extremely good. They will last for a long long time.

While non-metallic colors, they will not shine much from beginning itself. They shine only because of polishing.

So, IMO Non metallic paints will fade faster compare to metallic paints.

[Tejas@perioimpl]

It all depends on the quality of the paint and more importantly the painting process itself. If you see my OHC (view garage), i have a non metallic red painted 6 years ago and not polished even once!
Even my santro which has a metallic paint has got the same shine since 4 years when she was repainted.
The car needs to be painted in a minimal dust room (ideally zero) and should be baked very well for the finish to ever last. Ever noticed a dull merc or bimmer? No. Best baking process!
So, bottom line, try to save on quality of the job by cutting costs, your finish will go faster and you will need frequent polishing. End result, you will pay more in the long run.

[GTO]

Direct exposure to the sun, and the resultant heat levels, will affect any paintjob. Even the best of them.

If you see my OHC (view garage), i have a non metallic red painted 6 years ago and not polished even once!

If it looks acceptable without any polishing / maintenance, I can assure you that you car would look much better if you had got her waxed / polished ever so often.

[dadu]

Prolonged exposure to the UV rays of the sun affects the paint film.

Forget the sun, Even air has a detrimental effect on the paint specifically if you are near a refinery or distillery.

Yes lynx unfortunately it does happen. I have seen brand new shining cars turn into dull, ugly cars in less than a month when left in the summer Sun of Rajasthan. Left on its own, a car's paint can oxidize and lose its lustre very quickly in the harsh Indian conditions. You should use some sort of breathable cover for the car.

You should also take steps to protect the paint. Get the car detailed or detail it yourself. Wash, wash, clay, wash, polish, wash, glaze and then wax. Done properly, you'll have to do all the steps not more than once a year. After that you just wash and top up with the final step product as and when it gets dirty.

Use a synthetic wax or synthetic sealant as final step product. These synthetic formulations last longer than pure carnauba wax which wears off very quickly, leaving the clearcoat and paint vulnerable.

There are places that contain great information on how to preserve and enhance the paint quality of your car. It is also possible to detail a car so that it looks better than when it rolled out of the showroom.

The time and money spent on detailing pays off when you have to sell the car. You will find a buyer quickly and get far better price compared to similar cars that have not been detailed during their lifetime. To say nothing of the pride of driving (or being driven) in a good looking car.

[phamilyman]

Hmm, my car has done 9500km in four months - every single day in the sun, and half of the time, next to a massive construction site.

Weekly wax (even if fake formula 1) has kept it shining quite decently, even if I may say so

But seriously - everything ages man. Such is life!

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Originally Posted by GTO

If it looks acceptable without any polishing / maintenance, I can assure you that you car would look much better if you had got her waxed / polished ever so often.

The pics don't do justice (taken from a phone camera). Finish is much better than it appears on the pics. And i was advised by the painters not to get her polished even though i was dying to do so.

[vasudeva]

Inevitable that paint (metallic or otherwise) will lose its lustre in the sun. Better quality paint job will perhaps lose its lustre at a lower rate.

However, the great thing about India is the inevitability of getting a dent and paint after very few weeks or so. So, when the car looks horrendous after a few months, there is the concept of cashless insurance. This results in getting the paint replaced with a new one at minimal cost. The process then repeats itself. Of course, there are people who will not get their car repainted (for fear of losing original paint and getting lower resale value) even if their car looks beat up and pathetic.

[DKG]

Gloss on a paintjob is inversely related to the roughness of the surface. High gloss entails a super smooth surface with as few pits/undulations as possible. As the surface attains a super smooth glass like surface you get a very high gloss.

Now as the paintwork is exposed to the elements it naturally reacts with gases in the air and variations in heat. UV rays also affect the composition of the material.

The combined effect of all these elements leads to tiny holes/corrosion developing mostly due to oxidation and other chemical reactions.

To sustain a high gloss paintwork you need to first allow a car to cure its original paintwork. I am not a technical person but I reckon first 6 months its safe not to ever polish/wax the car as the paint needs to breathe for curing.

Following that period a good quality of shampoo will remove tar/dust and other chemical deposits from the surface. A good quality of wax will seal the surface and serve as a protector for the paint layers.

Essentially in my understanding retention of gloss entails protecting the surface from fine corrosion. The tiny pitted holes that develop trap light and hence paintwork looks dull.

A good quality of shampoo and wax is really all you need. Perhaps once every quarter or six months.

The use of polishes must be curtailed as with each use you remove a little paint along with the grime. That said on a very dull paint job you need necessarily to use a polish to cut out the ridges and obtain a smooth surface.

I don't see any reason why a metallic paint should wear faster than a non metallic. Two cars I had, a Civic in Dubai and a Wagon R in Hyd were both metallic and lasted 7 years with no visible deterioration of paintwork