94 Camry oxidation, product recommendations?

[zuper8]

Hello all,

My fiance's 94 Camry has some pretty obvious oxidation that I would like to try to improve if possible. I have a Porter Cable 5424, full set of pads, and several compounds to try. I hesitate to just go after it, because I recall reading somewhere on this forum that these old Toyotas are single stage paint, and I am not knowledgeable on working with these finishes. Anyone have suggestions, either technique, pad type, or product recommendations are all appreciated! On my shelf right now I have Meg's 83, Meg's fine cut #2, and Menzerna SIP. Happy to try something new.





And here's what the paint looks like on the other side, not heavily oxidized. The rest of the car looks pretty darn good for its age! I'd love to make it look a little better.

[Mike Phillips]

That looks like clearcoat failure to me.

Clearcoat failure is common for older, neglected cars, especially in geographical areas of intense sun.


If it is clearcoat failure there's nothing that will fix it except a new paint job. I cover this in my how-to books and also here,


The Clearcoat Failure Photo Gallery Archive

[zuper8]

Ah darn, I was hoping it was single stage paint. I can't remember where I read that Toyota used single stage paint up into the 90s, that's where I got my hopes from. Thanks for your help!

[Mike Phillips]

Ah darn, I was hoping it was single stage paint. I can't remember where I read that Toyota used single stage paint up into the 90s, that's where I got my hopes from. Thanks for your help!

You read right. Toyota did use single stage paint for their WHITE cars. It has to do with both saving money and because the pigment for white paint is titanium dioxide powder, which is very hard and resists corrosion i.e. it will L-A-S-T a long time.

(What color do they predominantly paint LARGE things like boats and jets?)


Single stage paint can be fixed. I just proved it to some single stage paint that's 46 years old here,


How to restore a Barn Find!


BEFORE









AFTER

AMAZING what you can do with old fashioned technology...









Once clearcoat paints go bad there's NOTHING you can do to fix the problem except repaint the car. A quality paint job on a passenger size car will run about $3000.00. More for an SUV. Most modern cars like Toyotas and Hondas will run for 300,000 miles so while they are mechanically sound and will mechanically last a long time most people can't or won't justify repainting a car a few years old. They also won't drive a car that looks horrible so they simply trade it in. Welcome to America.


Me?

I'm going to repaint my truck sometime in the near future and I'm going to paint it with single stage paint. The south Florida sun is just too harsh on clearcoat paints and I can fix single stage.

[Jaretr1]

You can probably get it painted for a lot less than Mikes estimate. You do get what you pay for when it comes to repainting though. Mostly likely even a relatively poor paint job will still look better than clearcoat failure.

[zuper8]

Thank you both for the replies! I have often thought about how mechanically sound and otherwise well-maintained the car is, it's too nice of a thing to just throw away over aesthetics. Maybe I'll look into a cheap paint job, as mentioned above, it looks a lot better than clearcoat failure. Thanks again for the help. I may mess with it a bit this weekend anyway to see if I can make it look a little better, but good to know for sure what the problem is.