Why Can't Ford Make a Tailgate Emblem That Lasts?

[Ford850]

Chevy had the same issue in the late 1980s as well. My grandfather had a 1989 Chevy 1500 pickup that Chevy paid to have repainted after the paint started falling off in sheets.
IIRC, that was when there was a change in the the type of paint to make it more "environmentally friendly" and it took everyone a few years to get the new paints figured out.

Aaron Z

Yeah those were some bad paint years for all the brands as they had to go through the growing pains from the paint manufacturers to meet the EPA mandates. Some colors were worse than others too.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Yeah those were some bad paint years for all the brands as they had to go through the growing pains from the paint manufacturers to meet the EPA mandates. Some colors were worse than others too.

I was with the state Department of Environmental Quality Air Division at that time; we had a GM plant here in OKC. My recollection is the same. The low-VOC emission paint (I think some or all of it was water base) just wouldn't cut the mustard. I recall seeing relatively new vehicles with the paint peeling and flaking off. Pretty ugly. They finally got it under control, and I think rather quickly. It wasn't the fault of GM particularly; I have a '59 Impala with the factory paint still as good as if it were a 2 year old used car.

 

[ultrarunner]

Paint, adhesive, industrial coatings all suffered.

A lot of the hospital was built in 1995 and we were the first major project with the new water base laminate adhesive... counters, doors, cabinets... it has been lucrative making repairs for the last 21 years.

 

[gwstang]

I wonder if in the 80's when they started using clear coat type of paint, over a base coat of course, if the clear coat did not have enough UV protection stuff in it. I had an S10 pickup and an S10 blazer and on both the CC was peeling off rather quickly...hood/top. Seems to be better protection now.

 

[Argonne]

My wild guess is that they couldn't find a blue paint that wouldn't fade on the emblems due to UV, and applied some kind of plastic filter over the emblems to protect the paint, and what we are seeing is that filter delaminating. There HAS to be some paint out there that would stand up, but it's probably "...known to the State of California to cause lead poisoning."