Quote: Thanks, Martin. You know, I was just outside and happened to notice a brand new Honda SUV parked nearby. I started to look a little closer at the paint finish to judge just how smooth the paint really is on new cars. I gotta tell you, I honestly don't think it was any better (orange peel) than my final mower coat. It got me thinking... I'm gonna take my camera out into the local shopping mall parking lot and take some photos of various manufacturers paint coatings and see about making a side by side comparison. I'll try to get as wide a variety as I can find. I know that in the last few years, auto makers have switched to low VOC paints and maybe that's why we're seeing car finishes looking alot more like they did in the 60's thru 70's an they did in the 80's and 90's?
About the red pigments - you would think red would be the easiest pigment to make as it's one of the very oldest (iron oxide), but I'll accept your explaination. The next logical question would be: Why does Silver seem to be the next in line for paint fading? Again, you would think silver would be one of the easiest pigments to make?
well, every color absorbs different wave lengths of lights, and all paints are not created equal, and use different pigments, it is the pigments used in the paint that determines fade, and silver has alot of pigments, some are more expensive than others and that's why they fade more. but you can see a difference from one manafacturer to another, alot of GM cars have fade and peeling clear coats, like the corsica, ect...and that is just due to using crappy paint. it all depends on how the paint is made, and what the quality of pigments are, and each specific color absorbs a certain wave length of light depending on what pigments are used to make that color, so for example, even white can be bad for fade, like on some Lexus perl white cars, they have bad fade problems because there is a pigment (maybe red/blue/green) who knows , and that is why it fades.
, and that is why it fades.
