My black '96 I-30t has a few spots where the black paint is fading to brown/gray. You have to look hard to see it, but it wasn't there a year ago. This car is garaged at night and has always had good care from me and from the prior owner. The faded areas appear to sweep back from the front line of the hood, about six inches in length. The front end has never been damaged or re-painted, though the clearcoat was buffed and re-coated 18 months ago to get rid of 135k miles worth of chips and nicks.

Anyone have any ideas on how to stop this? It's very subtle now, but it can only get worse with time and hard driving.

The car has 160k miles on it, so I guess it had to be inevitable at some point. Even though the paint is in otherwise good condition, there are a lot of other dings and scratches. Because I really like this car, maybe next year will be the year it gets a whole new paint job.