black paint.

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dexterstjock

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v8
I have a black 2012 Ram, I'm trying to figure out how to make the black paint look "richer and darker?" If you have any suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thank you!
 

Irishthreeper

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My wife had a black VW Passat and I used a polish made specifically for black. Can’t remember the brand but it was a major name and worked great. You can find it in about any auto parts store.
 

Highway

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Zaino, used it since 1996
 

ThunderMug95

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Some considerations…your paint is 10 plus years old with the accompanying oxidation and scratches that throw off the luster. You may want to use a mild cutting wax and/or clay bar it. Then apply a really nice wax/polish and buff the bejezus out of it. This will produce excellent results. There is so much crap on the paint you cant see. Take a piece of cellophane and run it along your paint. It would shock you how much grit and imperfections are there. You can feel it through your finger tips w/cellophane.
I paid a local detailer to do this to our 2001 red Vette and it was WELL worth it. I also clay bar my Ram every year. Silver is easy compared to black though.
 

utley

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Clay bar first. This wax has black dyed wax that will help increase the depth of color, kinda brings the black back for a while. I used this to hide imperfections in one of my older rams and turned a 20 foot paint job into a 5 foot paint job. Downside is if you use it on decals, its likely to stain. Every thing in that kit is stained black, so expect better than usual results if you use it properly.
 

Juice17

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Every little scratch, swirl mark, imperfection with show. Kids that play sports with there equipment is also a no no. My truck has more scratches from a bat bag or hockey bag than I can count.
 

HydroDog

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09’ 1500 in black here. Yep, wash/wax drive for 50 miles and it’s dusty looking.

A Harbor Freight DA polisher with Turtle Wax black wax works good. Haven’t tried the ceramic wax on it yet but it’s coming.

I end up not driving it much because I don’t want get it dirty. Looks great when clean though.
 

Treburkulosis

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Its probably full of scratches and swirls like mine was. I would do this process honestly. Use carpro Iron x pink soap. Use a foam cannon and foam it. Let the soap run off. Rinse off. Foam it again. Wash it. Rinse it off again. Use a clay mit to decontaminate the exterior and the glass. Rinse it off. I would then suggest either using Carpro Hydr02 as your final sealant its a spray on and rinse off product. Two products that I would suggest if you want to go further. Koch Chemie P601 is a great cutter and sealant. Id go with a meguiars black finishing microfiber pad on a 15" DA. Or you could just apply Shine supply clutch to it and let it sit in the garage over night and then remove it. Obviously a full paint correction is what I am going to tell you to do, but that takes a lot of work and time. I had about 10 hours in mine. Then I went with the Koch Chemie Body Guard 2 Ceramic Coating. H9 and F6 from them is what I used. Every car is different and Meguairs 105 may work better. The Rupes Blue wool pad worked best for my paint to cut. Then I used a Meguiars black microfiber finishing pad to do the final polish before I coated it.
 

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Cobayashi

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Some considerations…your paint is 10 plus years old with the accompanying oxidation and scratches that throw off the luster. You may want to use a mild cutting wax and/or clay bar it. Then apply a really nice wax/polish and buff the bejezus out of it. This will produce excellent results. There is so much crap on the paint you cant see. Take a piece of cellophane and run it along your paint. It would shock you how much grit and imperfections are there. You can feel it through your finger tips w/cellophane.
I paid a local detailer to do this to our 2001 red Vette and it was WELL worth it. I also clay bar my Ram every year. Silver is easy compared to black though.


Like Thunder said, you will have to start from scratch take the paint down and mild cut a buff out. once that is done maintenance is key especially with black paint with out the presence of metal flake to break up the illusion of imperfections. i have learned a lot just poking around and researching on detailing sites and forums and what not, simple things that you may not think about, like washing with the panel of a vehicle with the lines of a vehicle horizontal to the ground creates a very tough illution that the human eye has trouble picking out imperfection do to these lines.

The three most important things that i have learned with black paint is.

-Temperature as far as the vehicle being in direct direct sun light or not when washing to prevent the speed of evaporation.

-Lubrication as far as never to touch any panel without the presence of water or some kind of lubrication.

-Material that you use to clean and maintain the paint, (Microfiber EVERYTHING!) the absolute best thing to use is a detail blower after washing to prevent any introduction of scratches. but use a quality detail spray to hand dry to introduce an additional level of lubrication when drying.

as far as micro fiber towels, for washing any ole towels will do, but when it comes to drying i would invest in a few higher quality drying towels this will make a difference.
the rag company on amazon has several that are not to terrible, i would shoot for the 600-1200 gram towels.

i have stood by these for the past 10 years.

20221001_084654.jpg
 

ThunderMug95

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Like Thunder said, you will have to start from scratch take the paint down and mild cut a buff out. once that is done maintenance is key especially with black paint with out the presence of metal flake to break up the illusion of imperfections. i have learned a lot just poking around and researching on detailing sites and forums and what not, simple things that you may not think about, like washing with the panel of a vehicle with the lines of a vehicle horizontal to the ground creates a very tough illution that the human eye has trouble picking out imperfection do to these lines.

The three most important things that i have learned with black paint is.

-Temperature as far as the vehicle being in direct direct sun light or not when washing to prevent the speed of evaporation.

-Lubrication as far as never to touch any panel without the presence of water or some kind of lubrication.

-Material that you use to clean and maintain the paint, (Microfiber EVERYTHING!) the absolute best thing to use is a detail blower after washing to prevent any introduction of scratches. but use a quality detail spray to hand dry to introduce an additional level of lubrication when drying.

as far as micro fiber towels, for washing any ole towels will do, but when it comes to drying i would invest in a few higher quality drying towels this will make a difference.
the rag company on amazon has several that are not to terrible, i would shoot for the 600-1200 gram towels.

i have stood by these for the past 10 years.

View attachment 508900
Now thats an awesome luster on that Ram! Excellent work!
 

DerickE

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I had a bunch of scuffs when I bought my 2019 black 2500, and went with the meguires 'cream bottle' system. It's supposed to be more their professional line. Before I got the buffer out, I hit everything with claybar, then I went with the 110 Compound, then the 210 polish, and then their hybrid ceramic wax. It's not perfect. But I saved spending 1200 bucks for a local company to do the paint correction work.
 

ppine

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Black paint is the most challenging color.
After awhile it is going to show oxidation, scratches, swirl marks and orange peel.
A determined amateur can improve the paint with modern paint products. Use caution with power buffing because it is easy to cut the lines and go through the paint.
A professional can make your truck look really good.
But it is a truck, how good does it really need to look?
 

crash68

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But it is a truck, how good does it really need to look?
To some, them there are fight'n words... LOL
Some members won't even think of taking their truck out in the rain, those are beyond a pavement princess, show rides only.
Not everyone buys a truck to use for work'n.
 

Wild one

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Black paint is the most challenging color.
After awhile it is going to show oxidation, scratches, swirl marks and orange peel.
A determined amateur can improve the paint with modern paint products. Use caution with power buffing because it is easy to cut the lines and go through the paint.
A professional can make your truck look really good.
But it is a truck, how good does it really need to look?
Blacks not a colour,it's a career.I owned 1 black vehicle in my life,it was the one and only black vehicle i've ever owned,never again,lol.
 

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gofishn

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Nice Ride
 

Wild one

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Thanks,it's one of the toys i kick my rear for selling.At one point in time, it had a 6-71 blown 355 in it.It was in a couple hotrod mags in the early 80's.The car went through engines "alot",lol. It was running 10.70's in this pic,and the pic is from 84. It made money on the street in the early /mid 80's as there weren't to many street cars running in the 10's back then
 

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ppine

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I have had an outdoor career driving trucks all over the place and a lot of dirt roads in every western state. Private trucks, company trucks, rental trucks. Every kind of truck and I always thought of them as work vehicles. Now I am retired and have a new Ram in Delmonico Red. This is different. It shows dirt. I have time to keep it clean. I am reading detail sections on forums.

But it is still a truck and it is going in the mud and snow and once in awhile it will get Nevada pinstripes on the side.
 

averageguy

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You could take it to a professional and have it wheeled out. Nothing will make you cuss like burning through your clear coat or paint because you got carried away. Not to mention if it's bad enough to require a light wet sanding. The cost of all the different pads and grades of compound adds up too. You're not always paying someone to do a job, your also paying for you not to do it.
 
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