Did I do that??

[danny123]

Did I ruin my paint by my inexperience? About a year ago I decided to polish my car, I did the whole clay, polish, wax thing and a year later the clear coat is peeling on the hood, water got underneath it after it rained. I might as well add it's a 95' BMW boston green and has been outside for for the last 5 years.

[e24mpwr]

Depends - what did you polish it with? It is possible that you took an orbital and burned off most of the protective coating, especially if it had been aggressively worked on before.

I'd tend to doubt it though - maybe just years of being exposed to the elements, acid rain, etc. wore it out, especially if you weren't waxing often.

[danny123]

I used Pinnacle polish and wax with the PC 7424. I made sure the machine did the polishing, so I didn't put a lot of pressure when I did it.

Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it now. I just hate driving in a car that looks like shit.

[M0nK3y]

For it being an E36, I'm going to throw a 100% positive result on Clear Coat Failure.

To answer your question, no, you didn't do this. Pinnacle Polish can't really do much damage to BMW CC, even with a PC. To add on to it, having the car outside in the elements probably didn't help

[e24mpwr]

I agree with the above. You have to work awfully hard to hurt paint with a PC.

[John in VA]

I'd hoped that after the BMW clear coat failures in the '70s (especially Polaris), '80s (Delphin, Arktisblau), and '90s (as evidenced by this E36) that they'd found a solution! Unfortunately I haven't been too impressed with the durability of the water-based paints they use.

[jlb85]

^ + 2

Clear Coat failure not due in any part by polishing and having everything to do with living outside ;)

[Bobby Autogeek]

Did I ruin my paint by my inexperience? About a year ago I decided to polish my car, I did the whole clay, polish, wax thing and a year later the clear coat is peeling on the hood, water got underneath it after it rained. I might as well add it's a 95' BMW boston green and has been outside for for the last 5 years.


Sounds like clear coat failure from the factory. Carnauba Wax should be applied to the paint surface every 6-8 weeks. If your only going to detail your car once a year than I would recommend using a Paint Sealant for your protection. A Paint Sealant is more durable and longer lasting than a Carnauba Wax. The PC7424XP is a very safe polisher to use when polishing the paint surface. The Pinnacle line of products are awesome just use them more often.