icestorm81

Active Member
Sep 9, 2008
504
114
Dorset, Dorchester
My 2004 LCR has lacquer bubbling up and peeling off on all 4 of the door handles and the roof rack pop up bars, has anyone else had this issue. Thinking of either having the whole roof covered in carbon fibre wrap and doing the same to the door handles.
 
Happening exactly the same on my 53 LC, I just put it to being a 13 year old car! Be interested to hear other people's suggestions.


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Yes, every red and yellow cupra r ever lol. Your front bumper will go next.
 
Best option would be to remove the handles and re-lacquer them, it's easy enough, just gently rub them down to remove the rest of the remaining lacquer.

The same can be done on other areas too.

It's a common problem with Red cars.

I really wouldn't cover it with Carbon wrap though...
 
My red 2003 TDI SE is peeling well on the door handles also noticed the bumpers are starting to go.

Had looked at the spray on rubber stuff that seems popular in the US, plenty of videos on youtube showing people spraying door handles.

I'm guessing the lacquer comes in a spray can?

Completely agree that putting wrap on them would be a bad idea. I put a strip of black wrap under the rear window after hitting a wall in a carpark. It cover the dents/scratched paint rather well. But it would be difficult to get a good finish on the curves of a door handle and I doubt it would withstand the wear of the handles being used.
 
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I think that's Plastidip that you are talking about, it does work quite well but would never be a colour match for the pain already on the car, you can get a product called Glossifier (I think) that goes over the Plastidip to give it a shine.

Ideally you would need to do the whole car if using Plastidip, I;m not sure how well it would hold up on the handles though.

I would get a can of Hycote Lacquer and rub down and repaint the problem areas myself, remove a handle and give it a go.
 
Yes Plastidip, that's the stuff. From the videos it seems possible to do them without removing the handles, which does appeal to me!

I agree, matching the colour would be almost impossible and not sure how it would wear.

Had much the same colour matching problem after reversing into a wall last year. Which is why I used some matt black wrap across the top of the boot lid. Just stuck it over the dents and flaking paint, its still fine. You can see the damage when opening the boot but looks okay from a couple of feet away.

Was thinking about doing the same matt black trick on the handles. Cans of that stuff don't cost much and on the videos it peels off easy enough if it doesn't work.
 
Give it a go and see, if you don't like it then just pull it off, I do know you need to put quite allot on for it to bond together enough forming a sheet that can be peeled off, if you don't put enough on it won't peel off.
So thin coats but quite a few of them.

You will still need to rub down any peeling lacquer though otherwise you'll see all the ridges in the paint, a bit of wet and dry will do the trick, just feather the edges of the peeling areas down.
 
Thanks for the tips, I'll put it on list of things to try get done over the summer.

But I agree the best thing to do is your first suggestion, removing the handles and re-lacquer them.

Just looking for something a bit quicker and easier, I'm already planning to try and fit cruise control soon. Since my right knee isn't too impressed with the motorway commute I now have to do.
 
Decided on re-lacquer the door handles and cover the roof in some kind of wrap including the roof incepts. I will post some pictures up this weekend.
 
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I'm not sure if this is common on other group cars, but I've seen a lot of red VAG cars with faded paint and lacquer problems. Comparable age to yours are the MK4 Golf R32s in "Tornado red", seen a few of those had to visit the body shop to sort their problems.
 
It's common on red cars in general of that age.

Yes, have to agree. My LCR is red and immaculate original paint apart from the beginning of lacquer peel towards the rear of the roof channel inserts. It seems to be caused by the heat from bright sunlight on plastic items.