fragile paint on the newer cars?

[LL - NY]

My feeling is that the newer water based paints just aren't as durable as
the old organics. Not sure why, but I'd venture a guess that it's not just
the Germans with problems with the paint, my Saabaru has the same issues as
did Taka's STI, my brother's Mazda 6 (which is actually a US built car at
Ford's Flatrock, MI plant) and my coworker's Honda does, too. How Taka's
Volvo does well (at least his Volvo is a REAL Swedish car) means that maybe
the Swedes (whom I think were one of the first countries to adopt water
based paints) have just had more time to perfect the stuff.

LL - NY

On 8/26/08, Brett Dikeman <brett at cloud9.net> wrote:
>
> What gives with the paint on the newer cars?  My folks' C6 A6, not very
> old (and not many miles), has the most impressive collection of paint
> chips and scrapes I've ever seen.  They're about half the size of an
> eraser head, on average.
>
> The color is metallic dark green, and from the paint chips- which reveal a
> green primer- you can clearly see that the color and clearcoat layers are
> almost microscopically thin.
>
> Contrast this to their now-12-year-old Volvo, which has (white) paint that
> must've been made out of diamonds; despite years and years of abuse with
> little waxing/polishing- a bit of cleanup, and it looks fantastic.  Even
> the leading edge of the hood is almost completely chip-free.
>
> I never had such durability issues with the paint on my 200, either...
>
> Brett
>
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