I have not tried painting parts of a car in years, please forgive some stupid questions here!

My wife's 2005 black Neon has had serious clear-coat sun damage; it looks like a skunk.

I went to the local auto store and got some Dupli-Color Universal black paint.

I sanded it down to metal, applied black Rustoleum primer, sanded that with grits ranging to 1000, then applied the paint. The color is good, but it is not gloss, even after all the sanding and compounding.

Will applying some layers of Clear-Coat give it a gloss finish? I feel stupid on this, because though i am going through all this work to do a good job, she had previously went to Walmart, bought a standard can of gloss black paint, sprayed a small bit on one side, and other than a drip, it looks like a perfect match!

I can use all the advice i can get, for i have the hood and the top of the car to do now...

Thank-you for your knowledge and expertise-
-Bruce

 

I guess you've tried applying a clear coat over that. I have an '05 Black Neon with failing clear coat that wasn't all that bad in late 2020 and has become substantially worse since then. I'll be using your wife's Walmart paint trick along the top of the doors and the few body scrapes on the side. The roof and hood are the worst so will sand off the white clear and paint those with a slow drying black industrial enamel since that stuff will stick to anything that has a sanded/blasted profile.