Today my son and I was sitting in the driveway talking about cars and the topic of a bad car wash I had recently gotten came up. We were inspecting the car more closely and saw that the paint seemed to be cracking, how often does this happen?

 

its pretty hard to tell from here. but when i saw it, it looked like pressure damage. what part of the car is that on? can you take one a little further back?

pressure and rub damage is my guess. i havent heard of anyone here that showed that type of damage (excluding light damage caused by another car in a parking lot)

 

Your car either hit something or another car hit it. These type of cracks often don't show up immediately. I learned that when a guy backed into my fiberglass bumper on my RV. Pressure cracks in fiberglass can start later and spread. Weird, but seen it happen.
If its the hood someone could of sat on it.

 

Is that a bumper or fender. Something flexed that area. Also looks like your paint could use a clay bar.

 

The car definitely hit something.

 

I had a similar thing happen to my Vette. I hand wash my car using the best available products and methods. I normally wash my car once each week. So I am familar with each area of the car's finish. About three months ago I was spraying detail spray on my targa top after I dried it and noticed some very fine cracks appearing in three different areas of the top. I did not notice the cracks the previous week. My car is my daily driver so it does get some use, but I have know idea how the cracks developed.

I have only had the top off of my car probably five times in two and a half years.

I took my car to the dealer and showed the manager the cracks. He said he had never seen that. They replaced the top under warranty.

I owned an 09 before my current Vette. Long story short, my 09 got totalled by an Oklahoma hail storm. The hail impact caused similar cracking in the paint on all surfaces of the Vette. But my current Vette, has not been hailed on.

Probably two months before I noticed the cracks, I jacked my car up on the front end (jacked one side) but only a few inches. Basically high enough to remove the front wheel. I wonder if sometimes that stresses the body enough to induce cracking in the paint. I doubt it but that is the only thing I can think of other than damage that can be caused by hail impacting the car.

 

Thanks everyone, sorry I've been swamped with projects but I will take some better pictures and what does a clay bar do?

 

Clay bar removes the surface contaminates from the finish of your car. Your pictures shows a lot of small specks and some horizontal marks that may or maynot require a clay bar to remove.