996 Door finish

My 996 is a 1998 cabriolet and strangely both doors have a slight rippled sort of effect that you can only really see with the light reflected off it if you look along the doors, as the car is 20 years old is it an age thing as I can`t see it being from new or previous accident damage on both doors that has not been properly painted so has anyone with a similar aged car got the same on your car. * * Del

I cant tell you what causes it but i can say i see if often on different Porsches .

A timely thread for me as my car is going to the bodyshop next week so I had my dent guy out yesterday to remove everything he could to minimise the amount of filler needed to perfect things. Mine, and most, if not all cars I've seen have what you mention and I agree with you, there's no way they are caused by impact or knocks. It's a waviness to the door skin. Unfortunately dark colours show it much more, as you get a lot more reflection from dark colours obviously. I'll see what my paint guy says. I'm sure it'll be no problem to skim the area but I'm loathe to have a load of skimming filler added if not absolutely necessary. My dent guy is fantastic. He got a few out of mine and a good few out of Craig's silver car yesterday. A couple I thought he'd never be able to sort due to access are now completely gone. It's an essential bit of cosmetic maintenance whether a car is going for paint or you're making do with what you have. The dents you speak of though are too shallow and vague for dent removal. I guess it's just a one of those 996 things. If that's my biggest concern on the car though I'll take that. It beats mechanical maladies. :thumb:

Could be holograms from a bad machine polish? Post a picture so we can see

+1 Never noticed anything on mine but will have a gander tomorrow. The only 'ripple' in mine is on the front right wing where I think some hefty person has been pressing too hard on a certain spot. Only noticeable with a keen eye.

Do you mean like orange peel finish? I've not noticed it on mine.

No its not an orange peel finish and I doubt it will show up on a photo, when you look at the door from along the wing instead of it being totally flat and smooth it looks wavey more like an optical flaw than something physical you could feel with your hand. * * Del.

Not holograms, orange peel or paint defects on mine. Mine is wearing it's original paint and is pretty mint. Only reason I'm going for a lot of paint is due to single issues on most panels. A chip here, tiny scratch there. We are talking minimal undulations here, not dents, faults etc. Once you spot them you'll see them on most 996s. The panels are very soft, although I don't think they're caused by damage, as I've said. Some cars even have small dent out over on the bonnet, where the cross bracing underneath is stuck to the bonnet skin. If someone washes or polishes the car a bit too hard then each lump of adhesive will cause a small dent. The aircooled cars were definitely made from sturdier stuff.

Wavy finish normally indicates that the car has had some paintwork in the past. Doors nearly always get painted when blending in front end resprays. I'd be amazed if any 20 year old 911 still had original paint. I looked at 10 cars last year and they had all had a degree of paintwork over the years.

I have this on my car too both doors I thought it was due to a poor respray so happy to find out it's a factory finish. So what are the options to correct it? Winny