On my short list of bikes for me to get this year is the 2018 Speed Triple RS. However I have no experience of matt paint schemes. Everything I've read about how to care for the matt paint implies that it is very easy to damage and extremely difficult to repair! I know that the previous incarnation of the Speed also had matt paint. How do those owners find their paint to look after and what do they use to protect it from scratches??
I haven't had a matt paint job, I don't like them normally, so I am biased When I was putting the deposit down on the RS and deciding between the matt black and the white (I don't really like white paint either....) , the salesman said avoid the matt. That was good enough for me
I love the matte graphite on my R..quick skoosh with autoglym rapid aqua wax & looks great ,,no effort required & no swirls.
Yes, I've used the kit on a couple of bikes in the past, virtually invisible....... .......but then that was on gloss paint.
I'm not a fan of the matt black either. Is it me or have Triumph gotten conservative with their colours. Bring back roulette green! T
i had a Harley that had Matt black, it looked great for a while then the paint started to look a bit jaded so i used normal polish on it and after a few months it turned into a kind of cross between Matt and Gloss..quite cool i thought
I have the Matt paint, the dealer suggested putting on clearcoat film on the matt bits to protect it. Does the job great. You can take a wire brush to the clearcoat and then all you need to take scratches out is hot water or a hairdryer? Not tried the wire brush funnily enough, but if you check out YouTube there are plenty of nutters who are happy to demonstrate?
Very late to this thread but matt paint finishes have been a bugbear of mine for years. You can't make paint matt-er, but you can polish it. It's a pain in the arxe. Period. Any mark, scratch or blemish to a matt finish is pretty much there to stay, unless you want a re-paint and spray shops do not want to deal with matt finishes because they're time consuming and a pain in the arxe. I don't understand the obsession with matt finishes. Take a look at a Monster 1200 or an R Nine T Pure in shiny grey. Nice. Shiny is good....
I had matte graphite on my 2013 Street Triple R and absolutely loved it... as a paint scheme. But it damages much quicker and is much more expensive to repair. I would have hesitated to get it again if it was offered on the Speed RS but, since it was only black which I find a bit bland for a bike, I decided to keep away from matte paint this time around and do not regret it one bit. She looks stunning in crystal white. At the time of getting it, there did not seem to be paint protector kits available (at least not official Triumph ones)
I had an orange street triple r and wasnt a fan of the matt paint , if it is rubbed by clothing, for instance the tank, it buffs it into a shiny surface . A chap with a matt orange bike got it laquered and in my opinion it looked far superior . If you wanted to laquer an RS , you would have to buy new triumph badges for the tank as they are raised up . If the RS was only available in matt colours i wouldnt have bought one .
Matt paint is a right royal pain in the arxe and given the practical considerations of looking after it, only an idiot would buy it, but plenty do. Matt paint initially became fashionable with wealthy clients buying high-end performance cars, who wanted something a little different, a matt black Lamborghini for example... Matt paint is matt because it has an irregular surface covered in teeny-weeny little peaks and troughs which scatter the light in all directions. If the peaks and troughs are flattened slightly, you get a shiny mark. Polishing is about making a surface flatter and smoother, so the light is reflected in a uniform fashion. Polishing is easy, 'Matting' is not. Most spray shops (like 99%) are on a ferocious time/job ratio. Their bread and butter comes from body repair work for the insurance industry. First off, most of them won't touch matt paint jobs. Period. Too much time, too many problems. Any custom work (e.g. metal flake/lacquer work) will generally cost a fortune because whilst someone is messing around with your job, they ain't fixing cars. The technical problems of over-spraying a factory finish without proper prep are unfathomable to the uninitiated - even assuming old-fashioned technical issues don't occur (e.g. micro-blistering from water in the line), you have absolutely no idea what might happen to a gloss lacquer blown over the top - crazing, fogging, blistering, cracking, peeling - give it 6 or 12 months... Quite why Triumph are wedded to matt finishes is beyond me. There is nothing quite so stunning as deep glossy jet black. Manufacturers loved the idea of 'Metallic black' - 'Yeah, sparkly black like a picture of the milky way' I can hear 'em cooing now. But metallic black looks like shit, it always looks like it needs a wash. Similarly matt black looks like backboard paint..'Ooh yeah, stealth, Lockheed Blackbird..' Or a school chalk board - take your pick and only my opinion of course. It's about marketing thats all, marketing pure and simple.
defo get it venture shielded look on web various companies doing it had mine done £100 fitted ,it comes in either matte or gloss so is no problem there
Apologies...I'm not actually saying you or anybody else is an idiot, but having spent most of my life working with and around paint and paint finishes, it's a subject I get a bit agitated about...
Actually, with most Triumph paint 'schemes', it's best to do your research, find a decent painter and give your £13.250 bike a decent paint job.....
I like the matt black on my bike. Wipe occasionally with a suitable wet wipe. I don't plan to damage the paint so hopefully wont need to repaint.
