Pealing Clear Coat - What to do

Hi,

I recently bought a 2001 Tacoma 4x4 TRD OR Manual with 160K miles. This is the exact truck I've wanted. It’s red as well!

Pros: Exact truck I've wanted, replaced timing belt and such, brand new oils in all, perfect frame, new tires, just finished truck bed lining the bottom quarter. I wanted to protect the rock chips from eventually starting to rust.

Cons: Sunbaked paint with pealing clear coat, brakes will eventually need to be replaced, some scratches on the paint.

I have about 9K into it. A friend could wrap it in vinyl for under $1800, I could get a clear vinyl wrap on the roof for $400, repainted color/clear coat for an ungodly amount, or leave it and would get to the bare metal in about a year.

I'd like to keep the truck for a very long time even if I get a newer vehicle. I just love these trucks. So I want to protect it.

Is it actually worth it to spend $1800 on it? Trying to take my emotions out of it and see what other types of truck I could get for $10,800. Maybe I shouldn’t of bought the truck but here I am. What would you do or recommend?


Thanks

 

The roof on my truck looked the same. My hood isn't too far behind either.

I decided to spray the roof with plastidip to at least stop the sun from making it worse. It's so high up I can't see it, so I doubt I will ever get it repainted.
I plan to do the hood at some point, maybe do it myself.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tiffany-the-taco.374490/page-8#post-15845283

 

@nzbrock That look good. Nice contrast. Did you have to remove the seal from the front window? How did you get the corners so even? How long do you think it took? What kind of prep did you do? How many cans did you use?

 

I got the same problem going to paint hood and roof black like the look.

 

My 19 year old cap had clear coat bubbles and flakes. I hit it with a scrubbie and rattle canned it. Still good after 4 years.

 

I just taped everything with blue painters tape. I did not remove the windshield rubber, just tucked the tape into the gap.
I used the top of the door as a guide to keep things straight and eyeballed it at the back.
I had planned on taping the corners into that round that you see, but I actually forgot and only realized after. You can acutally use wd-40 as a solvent, so I just rounded them with a rag.

I believe I used 2 cans, but you could probably use 3 if you wanted to go thicker.

EDIT: I suggest reading a how to guide on plasti-dip if you've never done it. If you want clean lines you need to pull the tape when it's still wet, or use tape with a wire in it.

 

just let it bake. That's what I'm gonna do until, I have the time and money to repaint it in that perfect dark red! BEST COLOR IMO

 

Wrapping is not a bad idea, but I would wait to get more $$$ and have it repainted. A paintjob is pricier than wrapping, but it is really worth it

I've been in the same situation as you. The paint really needed a refresh when I bought my truck. Hated driving it around with the crappy paint because I didin't want the paint and developing rust spots to get worse. But I still did wait until I had enough money to get it repainted.

I did shop a lot and for a long time for my paint job and I've got a pretty wide range of quotes, ranging from the cheapest $500 job to the $10k+ job. The thing with paint jobs is that you really get what you pay for.
A cheap job will be a cheap job and a pricier job will be a better job. Good quality materials are more expensive than cheap ones and then you have the prep work, which is the most important part. Most of the time, cheap means less prep work and expensive means more prep work. The paint in itself is not the most expensive part, but it's the prep and labor that is. If you have rust and some bodywork to do, this will add up too.

10k jobs are jobs where they completely tear down the truck, like a complete restoration. It's up to you if you really need this type of job, but you can get a decent job for $3k-$5k. You just have to shop around

Don't regret the amount of work and $$$ you have put in the truck. you like the truck and you want to keep it? If yes, that's what matters the most. The trick when you have a project is to not count the $$$. You just do it at your own pace and you don't count. If you do count, you get discouraged and eventually give up. Working/investing on a project truck/car (or whatever it is) with the aim of selling it afterwards is not a good idea, as you'll never get what you invested in it. You're better keeping it at that point

Bought my truck for cheap and now that it is restored, I'd have thousands and thousands of dollars put into it if I didn't do most of the work, wrenching and fabbing. I was told I was crazy, that I shouldn't have put this much time and effort in an old truck, should have bought a newer truck instead, etc... But I am very happy and proud to drive it now and if I could do it all over again, I would still do it and I do not regret a single thing about the truck

 

Looks good. I opted for hurculiner, no going back.

 

Thanks for the info. One other thing, is there much overspray? I have painter paper I could drape around it, or did you just wipe it up with WD-40?

 

I used painters plastic and taped it as well. I mostly did this because I wouldn't be able to aim well at certain areas of the roof.

 

I lean more towards a wrap because it seems more durable and less upkeep, though I could be wrong. Seems like light scratches off-roading would do better with a wrap than paint.

Thanks for the advice. I do love the truck and want to keep for years and years to come.

Now that I think about it, I have saved many hundreds of dollars replacing the timing belt and oils myself.

 

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I just had my hood and front fenders and cab up to the bed redone.

if you already have 9k invested, I would want to have it repainted on the areas you need. That’s just my opinion anyways.

 

If it were me i would skip the wrap. Cheap wraps fade and are prone scratches/tears especially if going off-road.

I would take that $1800 and pay a local detailer (not some corporate chain) to do a full paint correction for a couple hundred bucks. During the consultation I wouldn't be surprised if those coin sized spots of clear coat failure could be saved or at least blended. Not to mention, a ceramic coating would further protect your paint from degradation. Then I would grab a few spray paint cans of color matched paint and paint the top of your truck. I have used automotivetouchup.com in the past and it matched my Honda perfectly (though I had a it repainted a different color and didn't have to worry about differences in color from fading). Few people can see it and the only blending you would be doing would be the pillars.

On my Honda the clear gel of my carbon fiber trunk was fading and turning white in some small sections. I went ahead and covered the top of it in black Plasti-Dip and left it like that for a couple of years. However, it started to fade and things like pollen were hard to clean off of the Plasti-Dip. Not to mention, removing it was a pain in the butt.

If you're a "good enough" person and it looks okay from a few feet away, i say try it yourself! It'd be relatively cheap and if you hate it you can wrap it or cover it with plasti-dip as you had originally planned.

Good luck!

 

^^ This is the route I went and all in all was between $50-100 and half a Saturday of work+ paint drying. I bought my truck with a peeling clear coat on the hood that reached out to all the edges making like 75% or more of the hood without clear, some through the paint to metal. Took the hood off the truck (easier to do than the roof) Used a razor blade to knock off the loose flakes, and started sanding all of it with water and 800 or higher grit sandpaper. Got a few cans of matching spray color from Napa and some clear coat and did 2 ish coats of color, sanding down bubbles or any orange peel with water after it dried in between coats. Then 2 good coats of clear coat. sometimes we go some orange peeling with that too (i think from spraying on too heavy) but sanding it down to super smooth before the next coat made a great failsafe.

I still have some peeling on the quarter panels next to the hood, and the roof, which I don't know if I'll ever fix-up. Being able to take the hood off made it super easy, but you would be able to do the roof with a top-notch tape and plastic job, I just covered mine with a rack so now I don't notice it

 

I had the same issue when I bought my truck as a sophomore in high school. Had no money to fix it for a long time and the clear coat was bad pretty much everywhere, so I needed to fix the whole truck. Luckily I had a few friends that took auto body classes during high school and I had seen his work and trusted him to paint my truck. Went and bought all the supplies from a sherwin Williams automotive for around $500 (cement gray color was more) and went to town sanding off all the old paint. I wasn't super picky about fixing the little dents but I did want the rust spots to be repaired, so we had to sand them all the way down and cover them with a bondo. Turned out good enough for me in the end after some wet sanding. After all the sandpaper, tape and other expenses I was around $850 all said and done.

 

Bad assssss!! That bumper sick man

 

Got a quote from a good local body shop and they said to paint and fix up the entire truck it would be above $5000. Way too much for me. I like the idea of what @jonesbt said, but I’m going to go with the wrap. My friend said he would do it for $1300 as long as I help out with some prep and such. I'm also going to protect it with a ceramic coating. The wrap will be satin vampire red by 3m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCDR4J3a9-s

Here's a video about the durability of a wrap after off-roading. I don’t think it is ceramic coated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POcDYC5HOuo
I do have the bed liner where I think the most damage will occur during daily driving and off-roading. My biggest concern is protecting the truck. Trying to decide whether or not to put the badges back on.

Here's another good durability review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma7qM-9NL_I

 

My clear is coming off the hood. Unfortunately, I am a political prisoner in kommiemexafornia where solvent based paint is a felony. Will have to wait until we make our escape to the US to get it re-sprayed in a non water-based paint.