Hey all! So my son just purchased a 2006 RX-8 in beautiful condition (31k miles). The car has custom paint with factory dark gray on the sides and fenders and matte black from the bumper, over the hood and roof, and on the back of the hatch. I'm not sure if the black is actually paint or some sort of wrap. The bumper, B-pillers, window frames, and some of the small adjoining sections look fine (dark black), but the hood, roof, and back of hatch were faded and a bit uneven in color.

Unfortunately we tried using Nu-Finish on those areas and as you can tell from the title of this thread - it made the color worse with a white haze. I know it was a bone-headed decision but we did it at dusk in low light on a very very humid day (there was a light mist on the body keeping it damp) and we tried a small area and it seemed to help, and we've never owned a car with matte paint and... well

Regardless of our stupidity, what's done is done and now we're trying to see if we can get the Nu-Finish off or at least get rid of the haze on the paint. After doing some searching online we tried using mineral spirits with micro-fiber cloths. This seemed to help a bit but not entirely. We also purchased this stuff but I'm not convinced it will help.

I'm also going to try a clay bar system. By the way, the attached pic of the car is before we messed up the paint.

On the bright side - the car is a blast to drive (manual trans)!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Update: just read that clay bars should not be used on matte paint.

 

I could be wrong but it looks to me like a wrap over the factory gray paint.

 

If that's true, can it be removed or replaced?

 

If it is wrapp then, do not use clay bar on it.

Wash the car with "dawn dish washing detergent" it will remove all the layers of wax and polish.

You can clay bar the rest of the car at the same time.

If you do the clay bar then, make sure you polish it with meguiar's ultimate polish and then wax it with meguiar's gold class paste wax to give it some protection.

Once the wrapped areas are washed and all the nu-finish has been removed. Dry it with microfiber cloth, and use meguiar's gold paste wax to give it some shine. Meguiar's gold class wax works fine on the wrap, I have not had any issues with it so far.

You can certainly remove the wrap, and get it re-wrapped or even do it yourself.

All the best.

 

Thanks for the feedback. The problem is that the paint or wrap is matte (flat) black so using a wax is not an option. Also, Nu-Finish is silicon based and I don't think dish soap will remove it - nothing seems to take that stuff off.