I live in Florida. My car is parked outside 80% of the time. My car is a 2018 mustang ecoboost. I was recently washing my car when I noticed it had the weirdest scratches. I took a photo and didn’t know what to do so I ended up finding car talk to post this to get some insight. My car didn’t have these marks since 2 weeks ago I had washed it and inspected it and everything was good. I took multiple pgotos of the same scratch, keep in mind I have about 4 or 5 of these on my hood. What could these marks be and what options do I have? Thanks for any help and advice you can give me!!
Are you referring to the mark that looks like a flying saucer? That looks like tree sap to me.
Sure looks like something dripped on the hood and tried to melt the clearcoat. Try taking it to a detail shop to see if they can buff it out.
No the mark above it. That’s just the flash from the camera haha.
Looks like that what I’m gonna have to do. Cause I run my finger over it and it catches
dried and washed off bird poop?
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I am referring to the mark above the flash reflection.
Agree with @George_San_Jose1… Sounds like tree sap.
Thank you. Didn’t realize what it was. It’s starting to craze on multiple areas of my car hood
Show it to the dealer you have 3 year 36000 mile warranty. It might be covered . Or at the least they might help with the repair.
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If you are talking about those spider lines and not the flash or the bird dropping, in my view those are common from using towel or cloth on the paint. The glaze that fills them in is gone and it’s time for a polish glaze and wax job. Also if the cloth was not wet enough and ground the surface contaminants into the paint. Yeah it’s time for me to get the ole buffer out too and go to work, but it’s pretty cold.
Now another story: In high school many moons ago, one of my friend’s dad owned the Ford/Merc/Lincoln garage in town. My friend had to report to work there right after we had cherry Cokes. One day he was talking about how hard it was because he had to prep the new cars by cleaning off the wax on the cars after the transport had dropped them off. As he talked about how he did it with the rags I said “oh so that’s how those spider scratches get on the paint of the new cars?” He was an excitable guy anyway but I thought he was going to punch me out saying he never puts scratches in the cars. But when you looked at them in the show room, they all had those spider scratches. Glaze fills them until the glaze is washed off again.
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Any chance this car suffered hail damage, followed by dent repair? That could have damaged the clear coat like that.
That’s my plan. Wish I could today but service is only open Monday-Saturday.
No, i live in Florida. Forgot to put that in the description my bad lol
That’s exactly what I’m seeing!
Yeah I was reading a lot about the glaze the clear coat crazing in itself and all that. Cool story haha, hope they enjoyed those cherry cokes haha
After school every day, we’d walk downtown and have cherry Cokes or sometimes lime Cokes at the restaurant that catered to us. Then he’d always have to leave the booth early to get to work. Such is the fate of rich kids with dads trying to raise responsible offspring. Same story as the 53 Ford with no heat provided to them for winter transportation. No Lincoln, merc, or even a late model Ford, but an over ten year old Ford from the used car lot probably instead of going to the crusher.
Not too long ago, I was watching some home repair show where the home owner had a problem with melting siding. They figured out the summer sun was reflecting off a curved window that focused the sun’s energy into a focal point, kind of like when a child uses a magnifying glass to burn ants, but reflected instead of refracted.
I’m betting something similar is happening with your car. As the sun makes its way across the sky, it’s reflecting on or refracting through something that is putting a focused beam on that area of your car and heating up the paint job. It could be a street sign, a window of someone’s home, or any other curved reflective surface. The various spots are happening because you are not parking in the exact same spot everyday.
That’s my theory.