What exactly are 'crazy cracks' in the paintwork of a car???

I am looking at buying a car but it will be sight unseen and the guy has said the paintwork is 100% other than a small patch of what he described as 'crazy cracks' on the roof about the size of the palm of your hand.

I just wanted to know exactly what this meant and if it is easily reapired.

Cheers
Trav

crazed paint is alot of small cracks i the paintwork. its hard to describe... caused by a fault in surface prep. basically the area (prefferably the whole panel) has to go back to bare metal and primed/painted again.

I was also thinking he probably meant "crazed" paint. Thanks to Google search, I found this picture illustrating crazed paint:



VW with crazed paint

Probably find the paint was sprayed over without cleaning underneath. Sometimes spray putty on top of unclean surface does this effect even better.

There are many causes for this some mentioned another is not using etch primer on bare metal or not using one shot primers suitable for bare metal. Another is the over use of Spray putty some people confuse it with body filler and lay it on like icing on a cake. its only meant for small nicks and very low spots. Best to at least sand the whole area or at least feather it out an inch or two all around the suspect area and hit it with some one shot primer/filler and then guide coat it. Chances are that it's the beginning of someones handy work and you might want to redo the roof so you know what has been done to it from your point of view. Thats what i would do otherwise you may just be chasing it all around the car over months or years.

I got caught with my Nissan Micra, it had cracks in the paint on the drivers door and it looks like little scratches, but when you look closely it is little cracks. Some one has given the car a cheap paint job over the existing paint with minimal prep.

This did not worry me and I brought it anyway. But in 18 months it now has cracks appearing on the front guards, roof and a few small areas. Plus the door is 10 x worse. Basically the car got a jam job to make it easier to sell.

So I would be concerned that if it has cracks on the roof and other panels on the car have been painted they may also crack in the future.

I wash mine once a month, keep the polish up to it as it lives outside in the weather. So dont think if you look after the paint it wont get worse.

Crazy cracks are the same as 'crows feet'. An area of paint that would appear as if a bird has done breakdancing on the wet paint. Either way it means a bare metal rub back to repaint the area. Not a big deal.

Hmmmm. Interesting.

Thanks guys i understand what he meant now and i have seen it before. When he said it was just on the roof it didn't worry me to much cause i thought he had the spray job done professionally so thought the rest of the car would be ok. Also i have a mate who is a panel beater and could get it repaired and resprayed for only a couple of hundred bucks.

But upon talking to the guy who owns the car last night it turns out it was a home spray job with his old man who used to spray cars like 20 years ago. So know i am thinking of giving it a wide berth.

He said that the spray job was done 18 months to 2 years ago so that all faults would have come through by now and there absolutely no other faults in it but i still don't trust it.

Oh well i will have to keep looking.

Cheers
Trav

crows feet are caused by too much activity, or thickness of materials including layers of primer and paint. the expansion and contraction of heating up and cooling down over and over in the sun and then cold night frost makes it crack. Thats why the top surfaces, especially bonnet and darker coulers especially dark mettalics with extra layers of clear are the first to get it and the sides with the same amount of paint dont crack.
So whatever u do dont just rub it back a bit and respray or it will come back even worse, as others said u need to buzz it right back, all off and start fresh.

The bonnet on one of my old 1200s was crazy cracked all over due to no prep work and a bad respray. We just took it to bare metal before working with it any further.