Please help!!!!

Okay I decide to wax my truck so I go buy Kit wax cause I've used it before and I like it. I get home and I only have time to wax the hood so I do. The next day I come out and now the hood has all these tiny little cracks in the paint where I applied the wax. I look the vehicle over thinking that the wax is just causing the cracks to show up but I don't see any cracks on other areas. So now I'm really concerned so i drive the vehicle over to a body shop and they tell me the wax probably just made the scratches show up. I had him look at other areas and no crack where present. He tells me wax could'nt possibly do that to paint. So I go home and finish waxing the vehicle and sure enough come out today and now I have cracks all over the body of the truck. I'm going to call Kit tommorrow and cry... Is this even possible for this to happen. I remember looking very close at the paint and saw nothing at all. I look now and i have tiny cracks everywhere.

Any input at all would help

Thank you...

 

Has the truck ever been repainted?

 

driverside bed was painted a while back. That panel has no cracks...

 

what year is the truck and what kind of climate do you live in, there are so many factors to determine what exactly happened

 

truck is a 97 and i live in idaho/four season per year and truck mostly in the garage.

 

unless you didnt take care of the paint in the past then idk what could have caused those cracks

 

This sounds like a problem I am having with my '98 F-150. About two years ago, I began noticing tiny hair-line or spider web cracks on the hood and front fenders. A body shop guy at the local ford dealership said it is what they call "crazing". Apparently Ford used a pretty poor quality clear coat those years, and it was common that darker color vehicles like mine (black) would "heat soak" the paint, causing it to develop tiny cracks (which became more visible when you waxed because the wax would settle into the actual cracks).
Bad news is that he told me it would eventually begin to flake off. Worse news is that you cannot just repaint over the existing problem because it will still happen You have to strip off all the existing paint first. One redeeming thing that the body shop guy said is that if you 75000 or less miles, ford will warranty the paint against this defect. Mine was past that already.

"Yeah, if we had seen that six months ago when we fixed your doors, we could painted the whole truck under warranty."

 

I'm having a problem actually believing that a product like Kit could actually crack / craze the clear coat. I'd recommend a little experiment. Wash the truck with Dawn dishwashing soap. This will remove all of the wax. See if you get back to your "pre-cracked" condition this way. I'm thinking that the wax just highlighted a pre-existing condition.

 

I had the same problem with 1998 F150, black. The whole truck had those tiny cracks in the paint. But you could only see them when the light hit the paint at a certain angle, or after a waxing. Ford told me the same thing, nothing we could do with a truck over 75,000 miles....
Mike

 

Well thats good to know. I did see a black 150 with the crazing the other day and mine happens to be red. I don't drive my truck much so I only have 65000 miles on it. Do I have a chance in getting it fixed under warranty? If so how do I approach the dealer about that? Mine is a 97 f150...

 

ya, this is what i call "Ford paint syndrome." i live n the northwest (seattle), and i see this on alot of cars and SUV's. my friend has a '97 Exploder that has those cracks al over the hood (worst), and some on the body. i can even see it starting to happen lightly on my 2000 f150, but i have gold metalic paint, so its only visible when the truck is freshly washed or waxed. i have found two good solutions for the problem: 1) buy a new truck or 2) go wheelin' and cover the truck in a good coat of mud.

 

I had the same exact problem on my 2000 Black F-150 there is only one common denominator in the trucks that have had this issue and that is that they came from the Norfolk assembly plant (or has been my experience) Anyway, it cost me about a grand to have the cracks fixed on my doors, hood roof and front fenders

 

i have these cracks all over the hood of the 01 screw i just bought.(dark green) is there anyplace to find the info that ford will repaint with less than 75k miles? i want to take it in but if they tell me to get bent, i want to be able to show in writing somewhere that they are responsible.

 

I have this problem and you are not alone. Check out this thread:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...54#post1633754