These are the pics of the rail dust repair of my brand new '08 HHR SS at delivery. Obviously, I had the dealship manager take it back in to have it done properly without a repaint. They took care of the paint very nicely when it was completed. Happy with the results and the manager appologized for the 1st attempt. These are the results of the first attempt.

 

And they even DARE to charge Transport costs ......

 

Rail Dust?

 

I'm going to clay bar my car and wax it here before the snow to get all of the rail dust off mine

you can't see it, but it'll start to rust ontop of the paint

 

Congrats on the car, too bad you had to deal with the rail dust issue. I've never heard of that before.

 

Happens alot especially when the cars are sitting in rail yards for any length of time. Mexico to Canada can take a long time.

 

If it just came in and it's a brand new 08, it must take a long time
Or am I missing something?
The Dealer should have prepped it properly.

 

Small metal particles that become airborne as trains run down the rails. They land on the paint surface and clay bar is the most acceptable way of removing.

In Texas we don't see too much of it because most of our GM vehicles are delivered by trucks. The damage we see is usually when the metal starts to turn to rust and there will be little red specks all over the top surfaces of the vehicle.

I have never seen it as bad as Cokeybills vehicle.

 

ChevyMgr, the pics are actually after the first attempt at repair. The techie did a poor job of cleaning after his 1st try, that was when I took the shots. I told the manager to put an experienced paint tech on the job(you know, a trainee doesn't cut it with tuff jobs). Still it was a difficult repair and to say the least the manager did not release the car until he and I were satisfied. Pretty good dealership and been around for quite a while.

 

rail dust is very bad. hot bits of metal fly of the track and land on your car burning themselves into your finish. within 2-3 yrs you will start to get rust specs in your paint. if you have a white car they will easily reveal themselves.
imports that are not chemically cleaned will start rusting prematurely.

l learned this at a detail supply shop. went to my car and there they were, little rust specs imbedded in the paint. good luck finding them on a black car.

advice go buy a jug of KNOCKOUT or similar product to disolve the iron. worked for me on my white s-10