The Pao Is Almost Ready But What Is Going On Here?:Cold Start

Cs Pao What 1
ADVERTISEMENT

You may recall that, for whatever reason, my little Nissan Pao has proven to be some sort of venison magnet, since I managed to smack into a deer less than a year after I got the car back after hitting another deer. I’m done smacking into deer! It’s just no fun for any of the mammals involved, and it’s not as cool as those teens that live in the forest say it is. Enough. Anyway, I was told my Pao was ready to be picked up, but when I went out there I noticed something subtle and strange. That discolored area I’ve traced there. What would cause it? Is this the face of some messiah or famous parent who never boned, or some chemical something?

Here’s another image of the discolored area, enhanced with computer magic to make the affected area pop more:

Cs Pao What Altcolor

See that strange splotch that looks a bit like an island nation from the map at the front of some fantasy novel? I also sampled the colors from the discolored area and the surrounding paint to compare, taking as much care as I could to find sample points that were roughly in the same shadow/reflectivity areas:

Cs Pao Swatches

It’s so odd! My bodyshop person was surprised as hell, noting that it wasn’t like that when he parked the car over the weekend, and I believe him, both because he’s an honest man and because I swung by and saw the car on Sunday or was it Saturday? Anyway, I saw no splotch:

Cs Pao What 2

The hood and fender are fiberglass, and I think the color is a good match to the original, even if it does make the other, faded fender stand out a bit. You know what, though? I don’t really care. This car is a patchwork of slightly differently-colored panels as it is. It’s part of the charm.

Still, the bodyshop is going to fix it because they’re not going to let something with an obvious flaw like that out on the road. I’m more curious about what could have caused it? It must be some chemical reaction, right? I haven’t worked enough with painted fiberglass to know.

Unless it is a vision sent by some god or other; in that case, should I just leave it? Can I still drive it if it’s become the conduit for some deity to communicate with humanity? Would I need special plates?

 

68 thoughts on “The Pao Is Almost Ready But What Is Going On Here?:Cold Start

  1. I have seen this issue before. Oddly enough, it was vandalism. Turns out a ne’er do well was going around naked and sitting his bare bum onto random people’s cars. His sweat was slightly corrosive and led to exactly this kind of splotchy discoloration.

    1. How do you do this again? Something about staring at the center dot of that splotch for 15 minutes and closing the left eye, or was it the right eye? Or was it both?

  2. First thing to grab my attention was the reflection of Torch with cartoonishly huge fists as if he’s challenging the Pao to put up its dukes and slug it out!

  3. I think I know what it is. The final coat of resin or gelcoat normally has wax added to help harden the surface. I suspect that after sanding said final coat, they just didn’t quite get all the styrene wax off with solvent washes (almost certainly acetone). That left a truly tiny amount of residue that made the paint layers separate or chemically react under the heat of the sun.

      1. Only if he neglected to don his tin foil helmet. Then he would have been ok, except for the fresh shit smell in the car which resulted from the aforementioned laser “test.”

  4. That stain is obviously discoloration from deer urine.

    The deer have found your car and marked it for death. You may have won round two, but they will be back.

Leave a Reply