Pin Stripes

[Ray!]

Responding to another post, I was reminded of the ever present danger of accummulating pin stripes while in the bush. I've found two things that help significantly in reducing, but not eliminating, pin stripes.

The first thing is to ensure that you car has a very good coating of polish/wax, the best that you can afford, and keep it up to scratch (pun intended) by regular re-coats. The stuff that I use is Mothers, which comes in a three part application kit that cleans, prepares and coats the paintwork with a good layer of protection, and then only requires periodic updates with the waxing. Mothers also has a great product called Scratch Remover, which is one of the best products that I've ever used. It will clear away all of those brown and black marks left by branches on the paintwork, without removing huge swathes of paint in the process. After particularly aweful bush trips, the scratch remover is worth its weight in gold.

The second thing is, when encountering dense bush, do not to drive fast. Go as slow as you can, so that the branches, bushes, etc have a chance of sliding as smoothly as possible over the bodywork, don't get caught in mirrors etc and slap the paintwork. On our last trip we went through scrub where at times we couldn't even see the sky, yet when I got back home and washed, scratch removed and polished the Patrol, the paintwork looks amazing. You can't avoid scratches, especially from dried blackberries and branches, but you can mimimise the effects considerably by slowing right down. I've done this when I had my GQ, which had a simply aweful quality paint job, and driven through what has effectively been low scrub akin to a scouring pad and come out to live another day. Anyone who has ever been down Corn Hill Tk from the back of Mt Buller to the Striling Rd (track now closed) will know what I mean.

White paint of course helps immensely with keeping the outside looking good, but I have owned two silver Patrols and managed to keep them looking quite good by following the same principles. It's even more important nowadays to frequently wax your paintwork, as the paints used are water based and no where near as hard as the old solvent based automotive paints.

[Chris]

In my experience you cant avoid the scratching, but a regular polish makes the overall car look much better and fills the scratches so they dont stand out as much. Cutters or scratch removal works ok on light scratching but in most cases didnt get out the deep bush pin stripes. I agree that a good coat of wax may help to protect from light scratching.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Chris