While I'm complaining about my Mazda....

[johne53]

Mazda 6 TS auto... First Mazda I've ever owned. I only bought it 2 months ago but already it's covered in small scratches. Admittedly they're only small (about the size of a human hair) and you need to get up really close to see them - but it seems like the most insignificant thing will scratch it. Even just brushing against it wearing clothes seems to be enough.

Small though the scratches are, I can see right through to the undercoat with some of them. It's quite obvious that there's only one (or maybe two) top coats of paint. I always thought that cars had about 6 or more top coats.

Are Mazda just a bunch of penny pinchers?

 

[Killer]

Ours still looks brand new..It's a 2005 model. I must confess I wax it once a month though.

My 2002 Acura looks tits too...it's all how you wash and wax man.(breakn)

 

[zumzumzoom03]

Mazda 6 TS auto... First Mazda I've ever owned. I only bought it 2 months ago but already it's covered in small scratches. Admittedly they're only small (about the size of a human hair) and you need to get up really close to see them - but it seems like the most insignificant thing will scratch it. Even just brushing against it wearing clothes seems to be enough.

Small though the scratches are, I can see right through to the undercoat with some of them. It's quite obvious that there's only one (or maybe two) top coats of paint. I always thought that cars had about 6 or more top coats.

Are Mazda just a bunch of penny pinchers?

HAHA I believe they are. My thought behind Mazda is that they have a really tempting product. IE Mazdaspeed 3's power and features should be pretty close to a 30k car but the price tag is around 25k. I believe they do cut corners and sometimes they win sometimes they lose.

 

[johne53]

1killercls - you must be keen to wax it every month!! I take it to the car wash (hand car wash) every week where I wash it manually but I've never waxed a car in my life (apart from the wax that's mixed in with the water). Do you actually use proper wax, out of a tin??

 

[ThE_RusH]

1killercls - you must be keen to wax it every month!! I take it to the car wash (hand car wash) every week where I wash it manually but I've never waxed a car in my life (apart from the wax that's mixed in with the water). Do you actually use proper wax, out of a tin??

If you have a no-touch car wash around your area... you should be using that and NOT washing it by hand. Anytime you wash it by hand.. you risk leaving those swirl marks on the paint. Any little piece of rust/dirt/rock/whatever can make your hand car wash your worst nightmare if it gets imbedded in your cloth/sponge.

No-touch washers also have a wax function. Once a month is over doing it a little.. but if you can afford it.. it will keep your paint job looking tight for years.

 

[johne53]

Sorry - by "manual" I meant using a jet spray, not sponges & cloths etc.

 

[johne53]

The worst thing is that the undercoat isn't even a close colour match to the top coat. The car itself is blue and the undercoat seems to be a very light grey (almost white). Ordinarily I might be tempted to try T-Cut but I dread to think how it might end up with the top coats being so thin.

 

[clicknext]

Do you mean swirls that you can only see under the right kind of light, or actual scratches?

The yellow paint on my car is supposed to be one of the most fragile there is, but it doesn't have that many scratches, just lots of swirls. Waxing often definitely helps, both to make it look better and to protect it. I only wax mine 2 or 3 times a year but even with that, it looks much better!

 

[johne53]

I haven't noticed any swirls yet. I'm talking about small scratches - between 2-4 inches in length and about the width of a human hair (probably thinner).

I don't even know what caused them. Most probably, someone touching the car with a shopping trolley or just brushing past it in the supermarket car park. None of them is very deep but I'm dismayed at how little damage has already resulted in the undercoat becoming visible. In total there are probably 15 or so small scratches - mostly on the sides of the car or the corners. It's got to the stage where I now park well away from everyone else in the furthest corners of any car park (hoping that this might minimize further damage). Not something I ever needed to do with any other car.

I'd be interested to know just how many coats of paint this car actually had. I'm no expert but I always thought that cars were given around 14 coats of paint - usually with at least 6 top coats and at least some attempt to match the undercoat colour (i.e. dark car = dark undercoat / light car = light undercoat). There's no way that my car has had anything like 6 top coats and although the car is dark blue, they've used an almost white undercoat which is soon going to show through like a sore thumb. It wasn't even a cheap car!!

This is my first Mazda and I can only hope that the rest of the build quality isn't as bad as the paintwork.

 

[Killer]

Do you actually use proper wax, out of a tin??

Yes...that is why both my cars and my bike for that matter look brand new.

 

[Killer]

Oh yea...and expecting the wax at the carwash to protect your paint is well...just plain crazy. (sorry)

 

[johne53]

Maybe - but expecting a decent paint job isn't crazy. As I said earlier, I've never waxed a car in my entire life but the carwash wax always protected them before. Not from serious scratches of course but it was enough to protect against minor damage.