Hi Michael, thanks for the compliments and for joining the forum. I am also a member of the Hotrodders forum and was notified of your question by Lakeroadster, so I will duplicate my answer there for other members that don’t visit this site. Let me try to directly answer your questions up front so the information you’re looking for doesn’t get lost in the text.
Apologies for the length of this reply, but I don’t have a quicker way to fully answer your questions. My truck continues to look almost exactly as it did the day it was painted. I am unaware of any fading, and there is no chalking. I’m retired now so I don’t drive as much, but the truck gets driven all year. It has suffered bird poop in 100+ degree temperatures, and been driven in the snow at temps well below freezing on roads that are covered in mag chloride. It is exposed to gravel roads on a daily basis, and is rarely washed except in preparation for a car show.
The Blitz Black has never shown a rock chip, which amazes me compared to the gloss black lacquer that previously covered the truck. By the time I was ready to paint the truck with Blitz Black, the leading edge of both front fenders had lost about 70% of the paint (gloss black lacquer) due to rock chips. We have a partial gravel driveway, and up until a year or so ago the road in front of our house was gravel. Rather than paint chips the front of the truck is covered in bug guts because I haven’t washed it since before our last car show several weeks ago.
Compared to your environment however, my truck is garage kept. I truthfully don’t know how this paint would hold up to extreme elements. Compared to other vehicles I’ve seen painted in Blitz Black, I believe mine might look nicer and hold up better because I apply the paint the same as a quality paint job. Prep is the same as for any other top notch paint job, and I always use the correct temp Acrylic Enamel Reducer for the time I’m painting. I never use mineral spirits or acetone as recommended by most enamel paint producers. They both dry too fast and make it very difficult to produce the desired sheen on the first pass.
On the day of the shoot I mixed 7 different test blends of paint and reducers until I finally shot the one I was after. Then I mixed enough paint to do the whole job from the one batch so everything would match.
Blitz Black is impervious to just about anything. Almost nothing sticks to it. It can be scratched, but not easily compared to other paints. I recently created a scratch on the left front fender with a wrench. Amazingly though, I’ve rubbed jeans, buckles, and jacket zippers against it which have never left a mark.
For paint maintenance I have done absolutely nothing. It has never been waxed or preserved in any way, and rarely gets washed except when we’re participating in a car show. Most of the time it’s dirty as we have a big field in front of our house and have old garage doors that don’t keep the dirt out very well. When it does get washed I use Meguiars car soap, and for bird droppings I use Windex. Just a quick spray and a wipe with a wet rag removes all traces of the insult. Bird crap on the lacquer always etched the paint, no matter how fast it was cleaned off. I’ve heard of other guys using nothing but Windex to wash the whole paint job. Seems a bit tedious to me, but I’ve washed an entire door or fender with Windex leaving no marks or streaks of any kind.
I don’t want to give the impression I’m a fanatic about this miracle paint. It is what it is, a cheap synthetic enamel that offers great coverage, cheap cost, durability and excellent rust prevention. It can also provide an incredibly appealing cosmetic finish if applied correctly.
The downside being mistakes or injuries can’t be rubbed out, and spot repairs are not easy unless you want a splotchy looking finish. I’ve read dozens of paint forum threads indicating inexpensive paints are a horrible waste of labor and they won’t last like urethanes. My cheap paint job still looks like new after 4 years, and I’ve seen very expensive paint jobs that looked lousy after a few years, so it’s a balance between how much is the vehicle worth, how long are you going to own it, and what are your priorities between a $200 paint job and one that might cost $5,000.
My favorite car color is high gloss black. Regardless, I was just commenting to my wife this morning I would never go back, even if I could afford it. I have no interest in going back to waxing, polishing, washing, and detailing. I enjoy the freedom of rarely having to attend to the cosmetics of my truck. It’s very liberating.
If you are seeking a satin flat finish, I believe Blitz Black is the way to go. If you want an expensive hardened urethane paint job, go with a gloss finish. It will be more attractive and probably last longer. I’ve spoken with many owners that had their cars or trucks painted with expensive flattened paint, and they almost always come out with dry spots, shiny spots, or varying sheen levels. Many did theirs over several times until it came out the way they wanted it (at great expense).
For a before and current comparison, this photo was taken within a week or so of painting the truck back in 2009:
And this is what it looks like today:
Only two things have been done to the paint since it was first applied. I removed the factory door mirrors and added 1958 Impala mirrors. I reshot the section of the door from the body break below the door handle to just below the window, and from the fender extension to the rear of the door. If you look closely at the second photo you can see the sheen is off by a tad. I should have thinned the paint a bit more and applied thicker coverage to make it match perfectly, but it was close enough to make me happy at the time.
I also repainted the tailgate after some rust repairs. Other than that, nothing has been done to the rest of the paint.
From an appearance standpoint I’ve had hundreds more compliments on the Blitz Black paint than I ever received when it was gloss black lacquer.
I chose this paint for the most common reasons. I had recently lost my job and the paint was dirt cheap (around $200) for the entire paint job. It is also easy to apply, and I didn’t have to disassemble the truck to remove all the lacquer. In addition I didn’t use hardener so there were no isocyanates to worry about.
That’s about all I can think of at the moment. If I missed something let me know. Good luck on whatever you decide.