Loosing My Redness

That pinkness you see is a dead layer of paint on the surface, the pigment has been "killed" by Ultraviolet damage in the main... Reds are notable for this as they absorb the high energy colours (blues, purples and ultraviolet) and reflect the lower energy red colour which is why you see it as red... Absorbing the high energy light results in this damage.

To get it back to red, you need to remove the dead paint on the surface and get back to the red paint underneath. One product that is very good for this is Klasse All-In-One. Apply to small areas at a time by hand using a foam applicator pad, working the producdt into the paint with medium pressure for a minute or two per secion and removing the residue, repeating if required. Another option by hand would be Autoglym Super Resin Polish, applied in a similar way.

I would then personally feed the paint with a glaze - something like Meguiars Deep Crystal Polish (not a polish at all, but a glaze with the wrong name on the bottle!) to give a wet shine to the red and feed the paint with oils.

Then, to stop it going pink again, the paint will require thorough protection from the UV that is causing the damage - I would seal the paint either with Klasse Sealent Glaze or Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection and then follow if yuo desire with a wax of your choice: Meguiars #16 wax I find to be very good and very durable.


[Taken from a post on DW]


Hope it helps you

Any pics?

Are they large areas or small

I was going to suggest autoglym paint renovator, i used to have a bright red 309gti a few years ago that suffered exactly the same fading pinky/red white patchy paint on the bonnet.

I did 2 applications of paint renovator, followed by a good polish and the finish returned to proper red.

But on top of that having used the meguiars 3 stage system on my leon recently, I'd recommend that after you've cut back the old paint with the autoglym you use the 3 stage t oget the finish back to what it should be.

I found the autoglym paint renovator a lot more effective than normal t-cut, which just didn't have the same end result at least not on my old pug.

I don't know if the leon red is a 2 pack paint or not tbh, but if you've used t-cut a lot on it, you may have cut back the colour to much...

I'd suggest the meguiars 3 stage system then, as the second stage is an oily type polish which adheres/feeds with the paint giving it a deep lustre.

If that doesn't work your only recourse may be to get the bonnet resprayed, tbh, it's probably just aswell to start with by visiting a paint sprayer/body shop and get some free advice then go form there, before spending £30-40 on more polishes...

At least thats what i'd do...