Polishing Extremely Faded Paint

Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
510
Location
Ohio
My wife’s 2009 red Honda Fit is suffering from some extremely faded paint. Painted metal surfaces have faded to a pinkish red while plastic surfaces have maintained most of the factory red. I washed/clayed/and began polishing with a fairly aggressive Sonax Perfect Finish and a Chemical Guys orange hex pad. The paint is becoming shinier but the red color is not coming back. Do I need to use a more aggressive polish or pad or is it possible the paint became so faded that I will not be able to bring the color back? Thank you for your input.
 
Are you talking about the clear coat being faded or the clear coat having already failed and now having bare oxidized paint showing?

I thought the Hondas of those years were prone to paint issues and were warrantied for free under certain conditions. Was your car not applicable?
 
Are you talking about the clear coat being faded or the clear coat having already failed and now having bare oxidized paint showing?

I thought the Hondas of those years were prone to paint issues and were warrantied for free under certain conditions. Was your car not applicable?
Clear coat is faded. I just bought this car a few months so I don’t know if any paint warranty would apply to me.
 
The clear is not really faded, the red pigment is dead. There is probably nothing outside of a respray can be done to restore the color as it is under the clear.
Red pigments are notorious for this, it always has been.
Gotta wonder why some ancient GM products with a type of red look identical 30 years on but Honda can’t make a red to save their life?

I was also told Honda usually doesn’t clear coat red
 
The clear is not really faded, the red pigment is dead. There is probably nothing outside of a respray can be done to restore the color as it is under the clear.
Red pigments are notorious for this, it always has been.
This what I needed to know. I’m learning how to polish and I enjoy practicing on inexpensive cars like this, but I’ll save myself some time and stop now. Got the car for $3000 with 164k miles as a grocery getter for the wife so the color isn’t a huge deal. Thank you to everyone for all the information.
 
I've also noticed that sometimes some colors aren't clear coated. On my 1995 Escort black wasn't clear coated, and this was mentioned in the factory service manual. All the other colors were.
Black for many years was never clear coated, the reason was with the clear coat available at that time would fail quickly over black, painting black can be a real pain, if the humidity is just a little high that could normally be taken care of with slow reducers and thinners the black would look milky.
 
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