polo2002 wrote:I've had my Rising Blue Scirocco for about 4 months now (bought second hand from a main Dealer) and decided yesterday to wash the engine bay and bonnet underside. Sprayed Autoglym engine and Machine cleaner over engine bay and bonnet underside as I've always done with all my previous VW's and when I washed it off the paint was washing off the underside of the bonnet as well!
Now I know that this product is not that strong so my question is, is the paint just a water based dust coat or is mine defective?
Depending when it was build, some areas are not given a top coat of clear laquer, so you have the water based paint layer only which is a duller finish than the outer body with its clear lacquer top coat. So not defective or an omission in production.
Most of the engine bay walls can be the same.
The other one to watch is..... some parts are made of re-cycled plastic so chemicals can react that are petroleum based.
polo2002 wrote:I know the wings have been painted and there was lots of polishing sludge in the bonnet shuts when I got the car and the bonnet had clearly been buffed, the bonnet badge is not as securely affixed as I would have expected but the standard is good so I'm leaving well alone, but now I'm wondering if there's more to it.
I'm sure if I ask the Dealers they will just shrug it off as "you've sprayed an acid on it" and not do anything else. I don't want to get into having it painted (i've had all that hassle before) but it's nice to know if it's usual, as you can only see it when the bonnets up.
Nope, the TPI (bulletin) just tells them to inform you "Please inform the customer that not directly visible areas (which are rarely/briefly seen) do not require the same paint structure/hue as the directly visible areas of the exterior painting."
I've used wax to clean the painted surfaces like this. A pain on a white car because the dirt becomes ingrained in the paint surface. Found the Collinite 476s I had to hand works well and also gives long term protection so subsequent weekly washing, particularly the under bonnet lip is made much easier.
The only other agent I use in the engine bay is 303 Aerospace Protectant to give the black plastics an "as new" finished appearance.
Bonnet badge has non-attaching locators and is stuck on with double sided adhesive tape cut to shape. Sounds like the adhesive tape may be deteriorating.
C.
