How long does carbon fiber last on a car? ie: hood, front lip. Direct sunlight all the time?

thanks,
Steve

 

as long as you want it to...once you stop protecting it....then it will yellow out/fade.

 

oh...what do you use to protect it? The same type of wax that you would use on the rest of the car?

 

protect it the same way you protect your paint. polish and wax. its clearcoat over the carbon just like clearcoat over the paint.

 

It will also depend on the quality of the CF/clear coat used. Example: 03-04 evo spoilers were yellowing and chipping due to a classic mitsu job on the clear coat.

 

I wax my seibon CF hood and trunk all the time. It sits out in the sun all day duyring the summer. I remove CF for winter. In 1 summer. My hood is yellowed and clear is cloudy. My trunk after 3 months is cracking and yellowed. Seibon CF blows. My RRM CF like my grill and eyelids is still perfect after 2 years. My cerious performance CF evo wing is still perfect.

Mass produced CF companies are junk. What you need to do with a hood or trunk is get it shipped to a body shop. get them to sand clear off and add good clear before you even install it....

 

You DO know that you aren't supposed to wax CF right?

 

Yes, you are supposed to wax carbon fiber. You treat it exactly like paint. It is clear coated. You just do not use cheap wax. use good UV protectant waxes.

 

if it yellows can u wet sand and re clear to have it like new again??

 

Well is'nt ther a special product made just for protecting CF

 

I went through this process and ended up wet sanding the entire hood, then simply buffing it to a gleaming shine!! No need to re-clear coat the hood...there is an excess of clear on the hood you can repeat this step a couple 2-3 times...

Local body shop charged me $100 to do this in a morning: $75 for sanding and buffing and $25 to wash the entire car afterwards....total of a hundred....well worth it.

 

why arent you supposed to wax carbon fiber? everyone i know has said treat it just like paint, which is what i always thought you should do.

 

^^

You are supposed to. hes wrong. sun goesnt kill the CF... It kills the clear. and your waxing the clear to protect it.

 

that's exactly how i always thought of it. when i was taking auto collision classes all they would talk about is how the clear fades and thats what causes paint to look like crap in most cases. if you take care of the clear, you take care of the paint.

 

yep just had to redo my oem cf evo wing, came out like new