Don’t be. These sort of subjects get talked up in scale and become a storm in a teacup, the reality is more mundane. Just make sure to check the car over before you drive it away so that you get a cherry and not a lemon.
I don’t feel it’s anything to do with the colour, more to do with lack of care in shipping and preparation for sale by the dealer. Bird droppings if left will damage any colour.
We bought a new CX5 4wd GT Sport a couple of months ago and our dealer had it allocated to him/us when it was en route from Japan.
Consequently it didn’t spend any time in compounds, and I think from date stamps I’ve found it was manufactured about 8 weeks before we got it.
As I’ve mentioned before in other threads, the clear coat is extremely soft and marks very easily. Even a fingernail will leave a scratch, although it does appear to be curing off (now the weather’s warmed up?) and getting harder, but that maybe just wishful thinking.
Fwiw the actual paint finish is better than my last 2 BMW’s, it really is very good, just not very thick.
I think with any red/dark colour (hers is machine grey) a ceramic coat would be a good idea if you’re worried about npmarks and swirls, but I wouldn’t let internet chat put you off buying one, all manufacturers have the same problem.
We had a Mazda 2 in Soul Red Metallic and a beautiful colour indeed.
We left it in a car park under a tree once, (foolishly) for a week and it was covered in bird poo on our return!
Soaked it all off and was fine.
As others have said keep it waxed/ceramic coated and it should cause no issues.
Enjoy your car. 
1 Like
I’d be careful with heating your clear coat you may make it worse
Better to get a detailer to carefully machine polish the damage out, they can use a depth guage to manage how much clear they remove.Then get a ceramic coating on it, bird poo can’t burn through that.
I’d say the opposite. By heating it up you are putting a fraction of the heat into the surface that the original curing process would have done or, for example, what any smart repairer would do when sorting a bumper scuff. Machine polishing to remove clearcoat damage can only be done by removing material. It may look great when it’s done but that clear is now X microns thinner than it was.
Those Autoglym heat pads look like quite a convenient, if rather expensive way of achieving the same result as looking like a plonker waving a hair drier at the area for 10 minutes. Same principal though - heat the clear coat and let it find it’s own level.
The misconception is that the bird poo is acidic and has eaten into the paint, it hasn’t. The clearcoat is all still there it has just been displaced due to the heating and cooling cycles since the bird did its business.
I’ve had some sitting on my car for less than 6 hours that has caused a problem, likewise weeks later in the depths of winter no damage is done.
The last problem area on my wife’s car actually has 90% resolved itself thanks to this recent hot spell!
2 Likes
Will the heating work if the car has had ceramic coating?.
I would imagine that if bird poo has caused a problem on a ceramic coated car then heating should still work as it is simply reversing the process.
Thanks all. The bird poo marks have gone after being baked in the sun. I’d hair drier treated one and then left the sun to do the rest. There is however a large 1-2" area of damage which according to the local paint specialist is the removal of a paint nib at the factory that hasn’t been sorted properly. Additionally it’s got low level holograms around the whole body but I’m not bothered about that.
Additionally, 300 miles later, two lots of 18 hours of battery top up, I’ve still got an i-eloop malfunction on the screen and the app shows it doesn’t hold charge. A battery that checks out as normal but a little low on charge despite miles and trickle charge.
To be honest, if it was a company car or second hand I might not be quite so bothered, but it isn’t and it’s paid for with my real hard earned cash. If I’d wanted imperfection and lack of confidence in the car I’d have had the discount that comes with that.
I’m keeping an open mind until next week.
Absolutely. Stick with it until you get resolution from the dealer but don’t let it stop you enjoying the car in the meantime.
1 Like
The marks are under the ceramic coating and weren’t cleaned off effectively before it was ceramic coated. Do you think the heat will still work.
If it’s a “proper” ceramic coating (the professional kind that last 2+ years) then just about nothing will work, they are incredibly tough and resistant to polishing. You’ll just have to wait for it to naturally degrade before you can correct. There’s no harm in trying some heat but I doubt it will cause the paint to “flow” like uncoated paint.
Unfortunately “ceramic” get used on anything that contains any SiO2, so without knowing which product it is, it’s hard to say.
Machine polishing heats the clear coat anyway, to the extent you have to be careful not to burn through the paint with a rotary. A certain amount of heat is good as it softens the clear coat and allows it to “flow” a little under the polisher.
Unfortunately a downside of long life ceramic coating is you cannot polish the car easily.
Its lifeshine, diamondbrite done by the dealer before delivery. If i try leaving it in the sun, about how long does it take to see a reaction if there is going to be one?.
I am not familiar with either AG Lifeshine or Diamondbrite (they are similar products from different manufacturers) but they both suggest 2+ years longevity so they could have a fair bit of ceramic content. I don’t think heat is going to be an issue given panels get pretty hot just sat in the sun (perhaps don’t blowtorch the car…), but if you want to correct the defect you’re going to have to polish through or otherwise remove the coating in that area, I don’t think a bit of heat is going to do much. Hopefully someone here has more experience/knowledge of them?
For future reference, typically I would not buy protection products from a car dealer (not just Diamondbrite or Lifeshine, but bloody GAP insurance too), because they always make a big margin/commission on them so they’re much cheaper on the open market. Protection coatings are rather dependent on the quality of application, and I’m willing to bet most dealers they leave it to the apprentices to slap on quickly, whereas you can buy the stuff for £40-50 and do it yourself or go to a professional detailer who will charge more but correct the paint first before applying any coatings.
Take it back to the dealership and reject it and demand a replacement car
this is not you fault be insistent
Re Lifeshine, I agree it’s not worth having UNLESS you negotiate it as a freebie or pay no more than £100 for it, in my opinion. We had it thrown in as part of the deal on a new CRV - comes with a bag of AG cleaning products, worth about £80 or so. The big advantage of Lifeshine however is the guarantee.
AG state that if you use their products (including SRP as appropriate) as part of your regular wash/polish/protect process, they’ll reapply in event you’re not happy and have to claim.
9 months down the line, the water beading on one of the car doors wasn’t lasting as long as other parts of the bodywork.
Bit of a faff to send a video to AG, but they sent their “technician” out and we had it reapplied at the dealership. Been fine ever since, but then it would be anyway if you’re regularly using AG products…
I had lifeshine on my daily driver, can’t remember how much it was back then, it was silly money but they heavily discounted it.
The bag of products that was supplied with the car was ok but obviously paid for in the price. Whatever was used on the new car lasted about 3-4 months, I reckon only a wax, it definitely wasn’t a sealant or special treatment.
I’d recommend anyone wanting a top job doing on your car either new or secondhand to get a pro detailer in, spend your money there. I had my NC done over 5 years ago and I just polish/wax about 2-3 times per year and it stays shiny shiny and looks great without too much effort.
1 Like
This is a difficult one, ref bird muck etching and a lot due to luck.- or lack of it.
The thing is, dealerships and cleaning a car properly might not be sentence that flows easily in the English language: Bird muck X lands on a car on the forecourt. I’m wondering if the washer takes out a specially prepared shampoo mixture and totally clean microfiber cloths and never rubs, only lifts after allowing the solution to soften the muck. And have they got a bird pop watcher scouring the cars to use this technique at the first instance, as, as many owner will sadly testify, it can take minutes in the ‘right’ conditions and with the ‘right’ sort of muck to cause marring? Moral of the story: removing it in a way I expect they would would probably do a different sort of damage, and it they just jet it and walk away, water spots can occur on the wet car drying if in sunlight. Pick your poison.
I recently got a new car in the family. New as in ours, not de facto rented via someone else buying it for me via ‘finance’. So I was INSISTENT that the dealer’s washers don’t go within 20 yards of it. Credit where credit is due, the salesman was off the charts superb (no there is a line which don’t flow easily in the English language), collecting it himself from the drop off area, telling the washers not to touch it and putting large ‘don’t wash signs’ in the window. HOWEVER, the risk was that in the week before pick up (I was waiting until the new '21 reg plate change over) it was sitting there. I visited the place two days before and a few small bird mucks were on it. But I came armed with a made up solution and did them myself while I was there. Luckily it was late Feb, not really sunny, and they were fine with no marring.
Moral #2, you can’t really win with bird muck.
Regarding that AutoGlym Reflow that someone else mentioned. A family member (not living with me) bought a Mazda 3 a week or so ago. Next day saw a bird etching on the bonnet. Tried Reflow and it did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to aid it.
The weird thing with that Autoglym product is that they say
"The water-activated thermal transfer packs have been designed to heat to a specific temperature which they retain for a specific length of time to create the optimum conditions for the paint to soften, reflow and fill the etchings caused by the bird droppings. "
OK, so I’ll use one at -5’C and one late afternoon when my car has been sat in the sun at 30’C all day… how can it be “optimum” for all circumstances?! I’ll stick with my hair dryer!
Yes, good observation lol
It not only did nothing (the Reflow on the Mazda 3 that is), but it did ‘proper nothing’. I think he shelled out a bit of coin for it too.
I call these, when I have experience of them, ultimate Dragon’s Den products, as I’d love to be able to come up with something, convince someone to buy it, charge them for it, and it produces absolutely zero results for them. A total winner.
1 Like