The urethane based clearcoats used to take 30 plus days to fully cure, back in the bad old days. That is not the case these days. Back in the early 2000's when I was running the paint department at an auto assembly plant, we had just upgraded to either the third or fourth generation clears, I forget which, and they were sufficiently cured and hard enough to be sanded and polished right after the paint ovens. The dealers could run the cars through their automatic car washes without scratching the paint as soon as they received them. That had not been the case with the first generation urethane clears. Those were the ones that lead many manufacturers to warn their dealers to not polish, wax, or run them through automatic car washes for at least 30 days.
Harley uses current generation clearcoats in their production, and I'm pretty sure they would require the same of their outside vendors for the CVO parts. If this was a normal condition, all the parts of all the various colors from the vendor would have the same haze and easily scratched issue. They do not. So don't let anyone blow you off with that "normal" BS.
Jerry
HighOnHD posted this and it worked for me: http://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=100557.0 It's a lot of work but the paint looked amazing after I finished.
Well I suppose I should chime in here and also give an update on my paint. First off sorry to hear about the additional cases of the so called "soft clear". In my humble opinion it is likely that
all of the colors have this issue. In my email exchanges with Gunslinger I was told they use VT5200 (or maybe it was DCU5200) clear and if I wanted to respray with a harder clear that would be compatible to use DCU4000. If you look up the specs on PPG VT5200 it is designed specifically for custom painting and especially for covering graphics and pinstripe. It has very high solids and is more challenging to spray, yet it is advertised as easy to buff (this equals soft). I doubt very much that non-cvo's are cleared with VT5200, and are more likely cleared with DCU4000 or similar.
Anyway, as for an update on my paint... the clear has definitely increased in hardness since the early (miserable) months of ownership. The lead painter at Gunslinger said it would continue to harden a little for as much as a year. Unlike some others I have been riding it throughout the Winter, caught in the rain several times, bugs splattered on it religiously, and even ridden on gravel roads a lot... you get the point. I get it dirty and actually have to clean it!!! Some colors hide the scratching better (like the lava flames on my bike AND like the silver on the HC). I have felt all along that as others actually get some time on their bikes this issue would surface more, and it seems like that is the case.
BTW. Since I'm on a rant... I'm by no means an expert, but the EPA has been continually pushing to reduce VOC's for manufacturers in this regard. This has been forcing the manufacturers into new formulations and processes to comply. The EPA does not give a damn if the clear is soft, or ends up sucking as long as their numbers are being met!! This damn issue ended up having me reading some damn PPG recent patents (maybe for VT5200) where they are having to create miracles to try and satisfy their customers AND the EPA.
We can't blame everything on HD! Besides I believe in capitalism. They must be doing something right or we just would not buy the damn bikes! I love my bike!!!
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Topic: 2015 CVO soft clear coat (Read 7775 times)