there used to be a section for this stuff, but i think it's gone so i'll post here.....anyways, i'm sure anyone with a late 90s/early 00s red yota has experienced the heavily oxidized paint. my truck looks terrible, how do i fix??

the guy at a local auto parts store said buy/rent a buffer and use a fine cut paint cleaner with a buffing pad then give it a good coat of carnuba paste wax with the buffer as well. any input on this from people who have experienced this oxidation?

also, any suggestions on mid priced buffers (<$100)? any success stories of curing the oxidation cause my truck looks really bad

 

not sure if it will help with the gnarliness of your oxidation, but i used some Zymol cleaner wax on an old tercel that i thought was beyond any help and it came out looking almost new. gonna rub down the old sr5 with that stuff when i get a chance. good luck

 

make sure to remember there is a difference between a "home" version buffer that doesn't spin very fast and a pro buffer that spins very fast and can damage your paint (practice on someone else's car ) The larger is what you should probably use, and is what he probably meant. You could try using a good fine cut paint cleaner by hand first if you wanted.

 

nu finish is good for oxidation. That's what my body guy told me.

 

I started buffng this truck out by hand and was taking what was left of the paint clean off...with Turtle Wax! See how much lighter in color the bed is?



A buddy of mine paints cars, he said he's tried everything on these trucks and a year later they look exactly the same.

Don't sweat it!

 

^ really?

Is it just a certain time line where this is a problem? My 90' with the red pain was still great looking, untill i went through some bushes and put some scratches in it.

 

The standard Red seems to be the one that oxidizes fast. You have the dark red metallic.

 

alright. Ive also noticed the greenish looking paint on the early 90's 4runners/trucks seem to have a lot of oxidation in my area

 

yeah, it's definitely the standard red that i've noticed oxidized the most. mine's not quite as bad as the truck pictured above, but it's getting there. i don't think that the truck spending the first 5 years of its life at over 7500' helped much either.

ChuckRacer.....were you saying that your paint was coming off down to metal when you buffed it?

Also, is it normal that the hand buffing pads have come out completely red when i've waxed my paint in the past?

 

That standard red on those trucks (and almost any car that color) almost always does it. The only way to stop it is by waxing frequently (say every month or so). The beauty with solid 2k is once its buffed it always looks brand new!

 

I started to wax mine but say ALOT of blue on my cloth...so I stopped

 

I had the exact same problem with my red '99 taco. The paint on the hood and roof looked alot like the one in that picture. I ended up going with a buffer and polishing the entire truck. I now use turtle wax liquid on it once every month or two and it looks great.

The only downside is like mentioned above, if you don't keep up on the wax it will oxidize again. I've been told it's because the clear coat has worn off and now there's nothing left to protect the paint from oxidizing except for the wax. The only real way to fix it seems to be to repaint the truck (or find a way to re-apply the clear coat).

 

That is normal. That is the old paint you are taking off. Also depends exactly how much as well.

James

 

That color is called Cardinal Red. My 93 used to look like that. I used polishing compound and that helped alot but not enough. I finally got the truck repainted.

James

 

A fair amount. But if thats normal, perhaps I will give it another go.. I know for a fact my hood has little (if any) clearcoat left... That just goes to show what a cheap paint job will do right?

I got nothing to lose, need to paint the truck soon anyways

 

clay bar + elbow grease

 

clay bar won't help for this

 

If you wax every two months or so, are you at risk of stripping all the paint off after a couple years?

For my application I guess I have a few options and not sure what is the best:
--two coats of a good wax (by hand)
--cleaner wax then a coat of regular wax (by hand)
--buy/rent a buffer and use a fine cut cleaner then a coat of wax
--fine cut cleaner then wax by hand
--just one coat of wax and keep up with it every month or so

I'm fairly good mechanically and not too worried about trashing the paint with a buffer and I've heard that if you get a good one with a good pad, it would be hard to ruin the paint due to the low rpms (<500 I think). But, I don't want to take off too much paint as the clear coat is already gone. I told myslef I won't put on the new AR Chambers and BFGs that are in the garage until my truck looks good again! Any more final thoughts?

 

It is a 1 coat paint. These trucks never had clear coat