carsong

My '06 Mustang has over 90,000 fun-filled miles on it. Everything has been completely trouble free, except for two things. The door panel "pleather" coming off, (did the DIY fix) and my big headache, the paint! Just about anything that touches my car leaves a scratch or chip, that goes right down to bare metal. I have faithfully washed and polished and waxed this car since day one, with high quality products. From a distance, the car is gorgeous, but look up close, and it is a mess. Has anyone else found this to be a problem? It seems to be with the black paint. My brother's Mustang is a 2005, and that lighter blue color. His still looks great.
I love this car, and hope to keep it forever. I can't imagine driving anything else, but this is frustrating. Someday I will have to have it repainted, I guess.

BrianMac

I have one sun fade spot starting to come up on my driver's quarter panel and yes, every rock seems to go straight to metal. Maybe it's the paint or maybe it's that the car gods are jealous.

moosestang

my hood seems to chips easily and it's blue. I blame the aluminum hood.

falcompsx

I have a black 09, and I agree, it does seem to not be a very durable paint. I think part of it though is just that its a plain black, no metalic flake in it so ANY imperfection will show horribly up close. Friends cars i've seen with metallic black finishes hide swirls and light scratches quite well, where as a pure gloss black is just a nightmare to keep looking good. The flip-side is when its looking good, it looks amazing.

iMuf

Hopefully this helps you out, I have been doing some "professional" detailing for a few months but I have been really passionate about it for about 5 years now or so. I have done more research on the topic then one could imagine. I have a tungsten Grey Mustang and swirls don't show up really at all. Rock chips are the same though, I have some that are down to the metal and some that aren't. but because I have a lighter color car those chips don't stand out hardly at all.

Black cars, or dark cars in general just show off damages to the paint way more than lighter colors. Swirls are the big one, mainly because when most people wipe a car they 8/10 will wipe in circles. Circular swirls/scratches stand out way more then a straight line scratch because no matter how you look at it the light will cause it to stand out.

You say the car has been polished, is that by hand/random orbital polisher or with a good DA polisher such as the Porter cable 7424, Griots garage DA, Flex 3401, etc?