Spotty carbon wings

[Jeff210R]

Does anyone have any idea what these spots that have appeared from nowhere are?

[Jonathan Kay]

Most recent discussion, with links to more, and some suggested remedies.

Jonathan

[ScottR400D]

It's moisture getting into the CF. Mine was like that but worse after a wet track day last week. 

2 minutes with a hot air gun clears them and they don't come back until they get very wet again. 

 

 

[tomlil01]

I had this problem. I think it is caused by the clear lacquer wearing thin and letting water in. It seemed to get worse and worse over time. I sanded mine down lightly, then resprayed them with "Hycote Clear Lacquer" that I bought online, and they look pretty good now. Haven't been out in the rain much since but I'm hoping the water marks won't come back.

[SLR No.77]

o/e Caterham carbon wings are not lacquered, they're carbon straight from the "mould".  Lacquered wings will suffer from stone chips same as painted wings, fine for front wings but not ideal for rear wings which can take quite a hammering.

Dullness or staining can often be corrected with wax or gel based products, "Wood Silk" furniture polish is reputed to ge quite good, personally I've had the most success with Autoglym bumper gel. Apply liberally and rub well in, but don't polish off, leave to dry for a few days and it'll gradually be absorbed into the carbon fibre.

Stu.

[T-Bone]

Hi, 

I had a similar problem with some very light spots. The trick is not to let the blobs of water dry on the wings if possible. I wasn't brave/skilled enough to sand and add lacquer. As Stu and Scott said above, some heat helped (hairdryer if you don't have a heat gun) and then I had great results with the Wood Silk polish. 

Had biblical rain on the way to a trackday at Brands Hatch and rain in the morning at the track as well. Even with leaving the water on the wings i didn't have any marks after that. Just needs to be applied every so often to keep it topped up. 

Good luck!

Tom 

[CtrMint]

If its just water ingress, I'd try a ceramic detailing product which should seal the surface and offer good durability way beyond waxes and other sealant.  The benefit of the ceramics however is that you won't need to sand and add lacquer, especially if they aren't lacquered from the factory, thus you'll keep a factory look.  I'll be doing this when I finally start using my 620R which has carbon wings.

[Rex]

My stoneguards were CF (came new with the car) One was milky, and one was not. I tried  a number of things including scraping off what ever clearcoat was on originally and applying a new clear coat. Nothing worked. The car is now 20 years old. Recently, I scraped everything off both stoneguards to get back to whatever was the original finish. Now they look fine. It is not a deep finish as I have seen on some, but it still looks like CF. I also have CF mirrors which were on the doors. I have never had to do anything to them. Again, they do not have a deep finish but still look good.

[Jeff210R]

A combination of heat gun, WD40 and Wood Silk has achieved a good finish with virtual elimination of the spots unless examined really closely!

Thanks for all the advice.

[Nick Bassett]

I recently fitted bare CF cycle wings to my 7 and then covered them in a ceramic coating to try and prevent white spots - so far so good as the car got quite wet returning from the Fish n Chip blat and still look as they should.

Also, I never wash the car in direct sunlight and I always remove water from the CF areas first as a priority - good practice I feel.