Weird paint lacquer failure
 

Yesterday while washing the S8 I noticed a chip on the bonnet, quite obvious as it looked white, so presumably through to the primer.
But when I was wiping over that area a whole patch of lacquer coat came off, about the size of a large egg! It was as if the damage had somehow caused it to separate and peel, though I hadn't noticed anything before.

I just carefully cleaned the loose flakes away and could see the "peeling" extended further but just left that as I didn't want to damage the colour coat by picking at it.
When it dried the colour coat looked quite matte, not at all shiny, or is that some intermediate layer?

To protect it I just filled in with lacquer from a touch-up pen (no lacquer spray to hand) trying to make sure it sealed up to the existing lacquer. It's not pretty as you can see in the picture, but less obvious than you would expect. At a glance it just looks like a bird splat! The initiating chip is at the very bottom of the damaged area though not very obvious due to reflections.

Is this unusual and will it require a full respray of the bonnet?

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...9&d=1600855374

There are some talented body repair guys who could probably patch that up quite well and blend it in so that you can barely see it but I think I'd probably just get it repainted. My guess would be that the bonnet has already been repainted at some point, and that the clear coat didn't properly bond, in which case you might get similar issues later if you don't repaint it.

My bonnet has had 2 repaints now (that I know of). First time was just to freshen it up and remove stone chips. Then a year or so later a couple of neighbour's cats chose my bonnet to have a scrap on, leaving deep scratches that wouldn't buff out. :rolleyes:

There appear to be several layers of paint there so it looks like it has previously been resprayed, and it is that which has failed. I think what has happened is that the stone chip has allowed water to get between the original paint and the respray (so the respray didn't bond properly, likely due to poor prep), and capiliary action has then pulled the water further under, lifting the paint. It also looks like the colour coat underneath has also lifted, probably due to osmosis with the water being trapped under the lacquer.

Given where it is, I'd be 99% sure that needs respraying, and possibly stripping back to metal first given the nature of the failure. Prestige appear to only have PF bonnets in green unfortunately.

Thanks folks, I did indeed wonder if it had been resprayed before and you're supporting that suspicion.
Another cost to add to the refurbishment budget. :D

I think you might just be seeing reflections from my very uneven lacquer coat applied over the damage with a tiny brush! The exposed colour coat was pretty level.