Morris Minor Owners Club

Not a Minor problem - but my red Vauxhall paint is blooming again - and it's only 3 years old! Spent ages last year T cutting and wax polishing. Anyone got a 'cure' for this ? Is there a polish that stops the blooming recurring ??
Meantime - it's polish on - polish off for me !

i dont think there is .all i know is that its the pigment in the paint that goes.sorry thats no help,keep polishing .

Sorry to say but there is no cure. Regular cut and polish is only thing you can do. Does the cloth go red when you give it a tcut? It shouldn't, should be laquered and that means there is nothing you can do about it. Vaux have always had that prob with flame red.

Ahhh Vauxhall red ! A cut with Farecla g3 and a good quality polish and then seal it with Auto balm might work but as previously stated if there is red on your cloth i'm afraid you have had it !

I didn't mean you'd had it if the cloth turns red.

What I meant was that if the cloth turns red then it isn't laquered. which would mean it is sortable.

If its laquered the cloth will hardly change colour and then it isn't sortable to the same degree.

Sorry about that...you are right if its straight red ie no laquer it could be sortable but once paint has oxydised its difficult to sort

Sorry to mis quote you super!

No lacquer - and yes cloth is RED! What I need is a polish that will protect it from the sun, after I have removed the pink layer - which in all honesty is only v slight - but I can see it developing!
Maybe I should smear on some factor 30 ??
Is red the only colour that does this ?

Red is probably the worst, if a solid colour, and one of the first ventures into waterbased paint.
Clear over base reds do not tend to suffer quite as badly. I'd be cautious about the number of times you cut it back as most moderns have very little paint on them.
Is the car left outside then red is one of the worst colours to deal with.

Don't say that - my dear wife will want to put it in the garage - which would mean Traveller out in the rain! I only do a light cut Jon - hopefully I won't go right through! So - there is no definite 'protective' polish that stop this happening again ??

If you polish it every week you might retain more of a shine, but really as Mark says its oxydising. You could flat it and lay on a clear coat which will at least stop the reaction with the air and water/sunlight, but if going this far you could simply do the job properly in solid colour.

Might sound daft, but, is it worth considering a laquer?
My dads cherry red Austin Seven Mini was awful, it was very well looked after (used to polish underneath the wheel arches) but if it got caught in the rain, then sun, the finish would have thousands of bleach type burns fron the lens effect of the water drops!
He just used to polish it all out again!

Thanks all for the suggestions - but I won't be taking the spray gun to this car anytime soon! So - does the Panel think the problem is air oxidation - or sun bleach ??

Yes!

Yep , both, plus a poor job in the first place. Did you say it was 3 years old, might be worth looking at the paint warranty, should have bought a Merc their's lasts for 30 years

Seriously, I dont know how you would find out, I think I would just keep it well polished.
I have been quite impressed with Auto Balm.

Ok - well I got almost half of it done today, should get the rest done tomorrow if dry. Then I may try a 'solid' wax this time, rather than rely on the liquid stuff - which I put on each panel after two goes with the Colour Restore. Trouble is - right arm is all worn out now - and it's amazing how useless the left arm is at polishing!

Buy the Bilt Hamber auto balm first(£15 ish),then compound and then polish and then auto balm it...if you don't protect the paintwork with the balm you are just making more work !
Red cars are the worse for oxydising..but if you offer the paintwork protection with wax or nowadays autobalm they won't fade.I have had 5 red cars and had no problems.Can't vouch for Vauxhalls i don't touch them
As for t cut..the world has moved on since that was invented

I have a tin of 'compound' but that's a bit fierce for the little bit of bloom showing! I'm actually using 'colour restorer' although I do have T cut and Brasso on stand by. I'll try solid wax - not sure I can run to auto balm at that price!

Seeing as it isn't laquered, if you do a good job of cutting it up once and then polish it straight away, if you then give it a polish about once a month it will stay fairly well red.

The vaux flame red has been a problem for over 20 years and they never sorted it.

At least yours isn't laquered, so you can cut it back.

I strongly recommend doing a good job once and then keeping on top of it with regular polishing. If you let it get away from yuo and have to cut it back too many times then you may run out of paint depth.

As jonathon says moderns don't have a lot of paint on them these days.

Thanks again all - how come my red Mini never showed slightest sign of this ??