It has been six months since our 4WD received its biggest overhaul yet – raptor paint on the whole car. During this time, the Amarok has been bush bashing and been through some decent river crossings in Victoria’s High Country.
And our 4WD has had a ridiculous amount of compliments.
You are watching: Raptor Paint Review – Six Months Later – What went wrong?
People stop us in shopping centre carparks and they also tell us how much they admire the look while we’re stopped at traffic lights. We’ve also seemed to have nailed the 8-10 year old boy demographic – we overhear lots of “Look at that car Dad, it looks awesome!” So, we are pretty chuffed about that.
If you’re planning on raptor painting your entire vehicle, have a read of “Raptor Coat a whole 4WD – Everything you need to know” here on this blog. This article features everything involved with our first attempt.
I did touch base at the end of the previous blog post about some issues with the result. So now I’m going to get straight to the point of this six month review.
There has been some triumph and failure with the raptor paint.
In this raptor paint review, you’ll find more updated in-depth information on four key points:
- What’s happened to the raptor paint?
- Why did the raptor paint fail?
- What we plan to do about it?
- How you can prevent your raptor paint from failing?
- Do we still recommend raptor paint?
What’s happened to the raptor paint?
Initial durability concerns
After 30 days, we began to question the scratch resistance claim and the porosity of the paint.
Our paint job was full of scratches and was so porous that we were unable to clean off spilt car polish from the bull bar. Adam had used a foam polishing disc with a plastic polish to tidy up our head lights. A little polish spilled onto the raptor coated bull bar and it was like the polish had absorbed into the paintwork. It couldn’t be sufficiently cleaned and ended up staining the bull bar permanently.
Reaching out for advice
So we reached out to U-Pol (the owner of Raptor Coatings Australia) to get some advice. U-Pol went above and beyond with their customer service. A technician came out to us to inspect the car in person. We were not expecting that at all. Adam and the Raptor Coat technician had a good chat about the possibilities of what has happened with our paint job.
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So, what went right?
After spending 50+ hours repairing all the damaged panel work on the car, it was time to begin the next stage of preparation. It took an agonising long time, we were really excited to get to the fun part – the spray job. We mixed the tintable raptor coat, automotive tint and hardener together and cleaned the spray gun between each bottle. This was all executed perfectly.
The Raptor Paint Technician confirmed we took all the correct steps with our preparations.
What went wrong?
We wanted a really fine sandpaper look and it turns out, it was probably too fine. Raptor paint is meant to flog out of the gun, but in our case, it didn’t spray out of the gun the way that it is designed to.
Why did the raptor paint fail?
- Sprayed too finely
The air pressure was set at 55psi. The professional spray gun has an adjustable nozzle which enables complete control over the volume of paint flow. This was probably set too fine.
Unfortunately, Adam can’t exactly recall how many turns of the nozzle, but it might not have been enough.
2. Product shelf life
There is no way of knowing if the products we purchased had been stored correctly or had expired. The hardener seems like the most likely culprit if this was the case. But we will never know, because the packaging and leftovers have been disposed of already.
What we plan to do about it?
We have to prepare and respray the entire 4WD.
It sucks big time. We are so bloody disappointed and to be honest, very deflated. Although the car looks amazing, it’s way too hard to keep clean and will end up looking pretty trashed very quickly – especially after hitting some more tracks in the Australian bush.
At the time of writing this, the respray process has already started. The bullbar, wheel flares, custom side steps, ute tub and the bonnet have all been resprayed in black.
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Next step is mentally preparing ourselves for the fact that the rest of the vehicle needs to be resprayed. This will involve:
Having the time – it will take a full day of preparation and another day for the respray. Plus, being without the vehicle for a minimum of five days – including drying time.
Finding the space – we don’t have our own garage and air compressor, so we need to borrow the space again.
Finding the cash – while the respray will most likely cost no more than $1000. It’s still $1000 which will need to come from our savings.
How you can prevent your spray job from failing?
- Pay close attention to the instructions
- Read and watch all of the professional guides and videos on the u-pol website
- Always prepare the surface correctly.
- Always clean your gun in-between each bottle of paint.
- Don’t spray your entire 4WD in raptor coat too finely or too thickly.
OR
Pay a professional automotive shop to do the job for you.
Do we still recommend Raptor paint?
If you’re wondering if we would still recommend raptor coating a whole car, we would say… YES.
Even though it needs a respray, it still a far less expensive option to paint and protect your vehicle from the elements. And when done right, it looks amazing. It’s also a pretty awesome achievement to do it yourself.
If you’re ready to find out more, head over to raptorcoatings.com and study, study, study!
You should also subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Our raptor coat experiences will be documented for our viewers. Then you can learn about how not to do it. And then how to do it right…
If you’re planning to do your whole car, lets us know in the comments.
We’d also like your thoughts on the black bonnet, should it stay or should it go?
You’ll only find genuine reviews here on the lappingoz.com.au website. If you liked this one, here are some of our other reviews…
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Category: Car