Patches of dissolving paint-what is this stuff?

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lostinbass

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Hey Everyone-Bought a 96 Continental about six months ago-cosmetically, the only problems are these spots where it looks like the paint is dissolving, a big patch on the roof, and smaller spots in other areas. I wax the car religously to prevent the spreading, but I think that its getting worse.
Does anyone know what it is? Some sort of weird paint disease? I/ve seen it on both Contis and Mark VIII's.
Can these spots be repainted? or will the whole car have to be repainted?
Is it oxidation? Anyone know what causes this? Has Lincoln recalled vehicles with this problem? I see it on other cars too, mostly early to mid 90's.
Any feedback would be helpful, thanks-
oh, the color of the car is dark blue
 
Clearcoat

If it is the same issue as on my 96 MarkVIII it is the clear coat. My body shop man told me tha someone had gotten a little too agressive with the buffer and made the clear coat very thin. Then the weather had it's effects on it and just like you describe, it looks like the paint is dissolving in spots. Mine is mainly on the tops of the fenders. My paint guy said he could probably sand out the bad areas and then re-clear coat the areas or even the whole car, but it would be a temporary fix at best. In other words, time for a paint job.
 
...The clear coat is flaking all around the edges of the areas and if you touch it or scrap it off it turns into fine crystals. The paint inside the areas are totally gone and even pitted. The areas that arent so bad just looks like the clear coat is disintagrating.
Just wondering, being ignorant of body work, when a car gets repainted is all the paint sanded down to the metal, or is it sprayed over the current color? If one chooses a different color do they do the door jams etc.
MAico offers half off their "$500 President paint job".
Can you get a good paint job for $250? Of course they didnt mention what size vehicle.
 
normally in a paint shop like Maaco, they do not sand the car to metal... thats a lot of labor.... normally they will strip the wax chemically, and do a small amount of prep.

Not knocking Maaco paint jobs, I had one done around 85-88 (don't remember exaclty when) and it was same color paint. for masking, they put WIDE tape on my pinstrips (I had 2 stripes, about 1/4 inch apart, total width about 1 1/2 inches), didn't mask the hood decal (covered most of hood, but had intricate lettering), and just dropped a cover over the tires. Had overspray all inside wheel wells, could see the diff in paint color in the appropriate areas of the pinstripes and decals and they didn't do anything inside door panels, ect. basically you get what you pay for.

I know a body shop man, and I asked what he would charge me to repaint my 92 cougar... at that time, no rust, no dents, but a few stone chips in hood. I almost pooped and fell back in it when he told me the price... 2 grand or so. He does great work.. but I didn't have 2k at the time.. so it didn't get done. It would have had to go thru his shop (he isn't the owner, just works there), and that would have been a discounted rate too.
 
$2000 is a good price

I had an estimate done on my 96 Mark VIII end of last year. Very small door dings, minor (thier words) body repair, prep, paint. buff, clear coat, seal. Almost $5000. Hell, that is more than I paid for the car. Body shops have become extremely outrageous in the amounts that they charge for anything. I do realize that they are skilled labor, but the cosmetic enhancement of a vehicle should not cost more than the mechanical part. I would have hated to see what a speciality or color change paint job would have cost.
 
Yeah..I'll just get an estimate on repainting/resealing the problem areas, mainly two areas, and would be happy if they could do that for 250 bucks.
$2000 for the whole car sounds "fair",I guess, for a very good, flawless job,$5000 is like - for one color? the same color?.
MAicos $250 sounds like trouble, so thanks for reinforcing that.
Guess the best thing is to know someone. My first car was a 67 cougar, a piece of crap,rusted,dented, but my dad said he would get someone he knew to fix it, and it turned out to be the most awesome looking car..mirror black,flawless, no waves, orange and tan painted pinstripes going around the rear windows up to the side of the roof.It was amazing ,the transformation.
That was talent.
Thanks for the info.
 
I would have probably done the 2000 paint job, if I had the $.. I was kinda hoping the guy could 'do it behind the scenes' type thing and just charge me materials and some beer (and he is a beer drinker). But since he couldn't get it past the 'man', it would have to go thru the system, therefore everyone gets a cut of the $, not to mention the boss would have had to pay everyone who worked on their normal wages.... I would have just gotten a discount, but otherwise I would have ended up just like Joe Blow off the street.
 
had the same problem on my 96 continental which was black. We got the hood, front bumper, roof, and trunk painted for 1200$. Came out pretty nice. For the whole car, 2 grand seems fair to me
 
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