What is paint correction?

Paint correction refers to the process of removing the imperfections in a vehicle’s finish and restoring it to an, often times, better than new state. These imperfections include but are not limited to, swirl marks or “spider webbing” from circular washing, automated carwashes, fine scratches, water spots, bird dropping etching, holograming caused by inexperienced detailers and the list goes on… Most common practicing detailers will fill fine scratches. In other words, your scratches are hidden and will only be revealed after you wash it several times. The only true way to remove scratches in your vehicle’s paint is with the process of paint correction, one of our specialties here at Trilogy Detailing. Once the paint has been re-leveled, your scratches are gone for good, but it does require proper maintenance to keep your car looking great after the detail to avoid putting new scratches into your paint.

How do I tell if my vehicle is in need of paint correction?

Have you ever looked at your car in the sun and thought that it looked like it was covered in a spider web? These are actually circular shaped scratches and are caused by improper washing techniques. Many people still wash & detail cars with the old, circular, “wax on, wax off” technique and this is where these marks come from. No Mr. Miyagi’s here at Trilogy Detailing! While it is impossible not to mildly scratch the surface during a wash (on an unwaxed car), these circular movements are actually what put those scratches in the paint, not remove them. Below is a simple diagram that shows why your eye is able to see a minute scratch in the vehicles finish in direct sunlight:

Because a circular scratch will always have a side directly bisecting your line of sight and the reflection of the sun’s rays, they will be much easier to see. However, if you wash the vehicle with front to back motions, the scratches will be uniform and will only be visible when perpendicular to the vehicle. Scratched clearcoat will appear white or light in color (See wet sanding photo below), whereas properly polished clearcoat is optically clear. This is an exaggerated example of how the fine marring and scratches dull your paint.

Why does paint correction matter?

Whether you have a Ford or a Ferrari, the first thing anyone who sees your car will notice is the paint. What they are really seeing is the reflection of the rest of the world in your vehicles finish. While a car might look “clean” and well taken care of from afar, often times the finish will be muddled by surface contaminants and light scratches and swirls. Sometimes defects can be present from resprayed panels where over time things like paint shrinkage, sanding marks, solvent pop, body filler shrinkage can create less than desirable reflections.

 How is paint correction achieved?

Step 1: Wash Process followed by clay bar and decontamination

The first step in correcting a vehicles finish is removing all surface contaminants. This starts with a thorough wash process, drying of the vehicle and then moving to the clay bar step. A common misconception is that once a vehicle has been washed, it is clean. While it may be clean to the naked eye, the surface is often still covered with stubborn contaminants that require a couple extra steps to remove. These step are known as “Clay Bar and iron particle decontamination.” Have you ever washed your car and ran your hand on your “clean” dry paint and felt contaminants are still there? In some cases your paints finish might even feel rough like sand paper if it has heavy contamination or paint over spray.  Have you ever seen tiny orange colored spots on light colored cars, sometimes looking like small spots of rust? These small orange spots are caused by embedded iron particles; typically from hot metal particulates released when you use your brakes.  These particulates are very hot and embed themselves often below the paints surface.  To remove these ferrous metal particles is completed using a chemical bath which dissolves these without damaging your paint. This decontamination process is important, as when you move to the next stages of buffing, polishing, etc you don’t want those contaminants being ground into your car possibly permanently damaging your vehicle’s paint.

In this process, the surface of the paint is sprayed with a special clay lubricant and then gone over with a soft detailing grade block of clay. As illustrated above these stubborn contaminants left over from the wash process. The processes of clay bar and chemical decontamination are extremely important because if one was to begin polishing before these contaminants were removed then they would be ground into the paint causing scratches or other visible results. Once all of these contaminants have been removed, the paint must then be inspected to see what sort of correction will be required. Here you can see the contamination picked up with the clay bar on a small 18”x18” section of this Jaguar XJ6 trunk lid.

Step 2 (if required): Wet Sanding or Leveling

Sometimes buffing and polishing isn’t enough to remove an imperfection from a vehicle’s surface. For the things like especially deep scratches or scuffs, they must be removed with a technique known as “wet sanding”. This is the process of using a moistened series of specially designed automotive sandpaper with very fine grit to remove the top layer of clear coat. The surface then has to go through a staged extensive buffing & polishing process to bring the shine back. Here is an example of a section of a car door we detailed, part way through the wet sanding process, to remove factory machine sanding scratches on this new car.

Step 3: Buffing & Polishing

Step 3 and 4 (Sometimes more) of the paint correction process is the actual polishing of the vehicle. It isn’t as simple as grabbing a polisher and going to work though. Depending on a number of factors such as the amount and type of clear coat, if it is one stage paint or basecoat + clearcoat, the hardness of the paint and the severity of the imperfections, the combination of machine, pad, and polish will differ from vehicle to vehicle. For instance, vehicles that have been wet sanded will required a multi-step polishing process including 3-4 different types of polishing pads and several different types of polishes.

Often times several stages of polishing are required to achieve full correction. The first being the most abrasive and the last being a very fine finishing polish. The large scratches are removed in the first stage of polish and then the smaller surface abrasions caused by this harsh polish are removed by the finer polish that comes after it.

Step 4: Sealing or Coating the Vehicle

After all correction has taken place, it is time to seal up the vehicle’s paint to protect it from further scratching. This step however is where some shops try and cover their poor paint correction abilities by using what is known as a “glaze”. Have you ever had your car detailed only to find it looking scratched up a couple weeks later? That is most likely because the detailers used a glaze product. A glaze is a talcum & water based product that is applied to a vehicle’s finish that fills in scratches and gives the appearance of “corrected paint”. Since this product is water based and doesn’t actually bond with the clear coat like wax, it just sits on the surface and after a couple washes or some harsh weather will be completely gone.

Unlike glaze, our sealants are engineered to maintain a protective layer on your paint for several months and our ceramic coatings are designed to chemically bond to your paint’s surface for protection measured in years. There are two main kinds of products we use; polymer-based sealants and nano/ceramic coatings. The synthetic polymer-based sealants will last about 6-8 months and add a rich warm deep shine while the ceramic coatings are known for their longevity and clear candy like shine. When scheduling your appointment, let us know the environmental conditions, mileage, and type of care your car receives to best assess your needs for paint protection. We even have options such as “Stacking” which can increase the deep rich look of the polymer sealants by topping with carnauba wax to further the richness in darker colored paints.  We can even “stack” ceramic coatings to increase the hydrophobic properties, increase the longevity, and increase slickness. Check out the clarity and amount of flake you can see in this corrected and coated Volvo XC90 hood in direct sunlight. (We have intentionally left this image very big so you can easily inspect how much reflection and clarity has been achieved with proper paint correction and coating)

Still have questions regarding paint correction, detailing or paint protection? Feel free to email us at trilogydetailingnc@gmail.com or call us at 336-940-8111 and we would be happy to help you in any way we can!