I have an older two horse Sundowner trailer that is kept outside. It is painted white over aluminum. The paint seems to be washing off even with just plain water. Has anyone ever seen this before? I asked the previous owner and they never had it painted so it is the original paint.
I hope it is wearing underwear.
If not, you better get some on it before the pants fall completely off.
Seriously, is it flaking or washing off chalky?
Did you try contacting Sundowner and see if they are aware of any such problem in that kind of trailer and year?
I have not contacted Sundowner yet but I will today. No flaking just washes making the run off water slightly discolored.
or use a belt (or suspenders)… 
Yes, I type too fast and do not proof read enough. Fixed it.
:yes: 
That’s okay; we’ll “forgive” you this time
Oh, it was more fun the other way.
I like the suspenders idea.
I hope Sundowner will not just brush your questions off.
Surely that is not the first one doing that?
I figured this out when I was trying to wash and polish an old car and did a lot of research on polishes. Paint degrades and washes off as it gets old. When I wash my truck well, green comes off. It’s green. When you polish paint, you’re basically sort of sanding down and filling in the areas where the paint is chipping away.
So, basically you have old paint, so you need to clean it really well and get all of that off, and then seal it with a wax or polish (those are different, too.)
Every trailer (and camper) does that. It is just the paint or clearcoat or whatever oxidizing. If you took a “before” and “after” picture you would notice a huge difference with the trailer going from chalky looking back to shiny.
We hand wash our trailers with an RV wash that also has wax in it. It works great and the trailers shine like new when we are done. Our oldest trailer is a 15-yr old Sundowner, and I received a compliment last week on it, with the person thinking it was brand new.
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Yep, as moving to dc said, its oxidizing. Our older trailer does it all the time. You will see what looks like white paint oozing down the sides when you wash the trailer. No big deal!
It needs to be waxed and de oxidized. This will work for a year or two. We now high speed polish our trailer every spring and never have this problem. The sides will come up super shiney again (I bet your trailer has a “dull” look to it now. Don’t worry, as soon as its waxed, it comes up shiney and brand new again).
Our trailer is now 16 years old (Exiss) and looks brand new. We acutally just traded it in and got a great value for it as it looks pretty much brand new!
