Paint Correction Frequency

[rexus31]

How often should one perform paint correction?  

[Chris@Adams]

Once you get your paint perfect and do proper washing & drying it should last a good while, especially if you apply coatings after your paint correction.

Hope this helps.

[shane@detailedreflections]

Let’s follow up with a whole bunch more information about what paint correction is, and when it should (and shouldn’t be applied). 

 

Paint correction is not a magic bullet. It’s not something that can be done unlimited times. Paint correction works by removing clear coat in order to remove defects in your paint. 

 

Most of the UV protection of your paint comes in the first 1/3 of the clearcoat. Knowing that, we don’t want to remove more than that over the LIFETIME of the vehicle. Once you reduce the UV protection you accelerate clearcoat failure requiring a repaint. 

 

Paint correction also serves to level the clearcoat on a vehicle increasing the glossy look of the finish. This is why even brand new vehicles benefit from polishing. 

 

Modern paint systems are a three part system. They consist of a primer, base coat (color) and clear coat.  Older paints may be single stage in nature mixing the clear and paint layers. 

 

On top of your paint sits a variety of contamination and defects typically. Contamination on the paint is generally tackled with washing, iron remover and clay.

 

 

When we talk about defects, there’s spider webs which are microscratches, deep scratches which may or not be able to be taken care of without repainting and other forms of defects as illustrated below. 

 

 

When paint correcting we are only working with the clear coat. So as you can see, the deep scratches can’t be fixed. And some that are just in the clear coat shouldn’t be fixed for fear of striking through or removing too much clear accelerating failure. 

 

So you get a car, and you paint correct it. You’ve removed a little clear coat. You use good technique in washing and over time you develop damage (it happens no matter what we do). You polish again. But because you’ve used good technique along the way, you only need a finish polish to take a little clear coat off. Using this methodology you can get a long time with out of your paint and great looks. 

 

The other scenario is you perform a paint correction and you take it through the automatic car wash. You damage your finish over time. You then need a full correction to repair the damage which takes off more of the clear coat.  When approached this way, you’re going to burn through more clear coat or get less corrections. 

 

So the ultimate answer to your question is to correct as infrequently as possible to preserve the clear coat. We use a paint thickness gauge to know what we are doing to a clients paint (or what they’ve done to it already). 

 

We are not opposed to using a fine polish a couple times a year. It leaves a satisfactory finish for most clients without significantly shortening the life of the paint. We will sometimes use a compound in isolated spots to handle concentrated damage as opposed to going all in everywhere. 

 

Hope this is helpful. 

[rexus31]

5 minutes ago, shane@detailedreflections said:

Let’s follow up with a whole bunch more information about what paint correction is, and when it should (and shouldn’t be applied). 

 

Paint correction is not a magic bullet. It’s not something that can be done unlimited times. Paint correction works by removing clear coat in order to remove defects in your paint. 

 

Most of the UV protection of your paint comes in the first 1/3 of the clearcoat. Knowing that, we don’t want to remove more than that over the LIFETIME of the vehicle. Once you reduce the UV protection you accelerate clearcoat failure requiring a repaint. 

 

Paint correction also serves to level the clearcoat on a vehicle increasing the glossy look of the finish. This is why even brand new vehicles benefit from polishing. 

 

Modern paint systems are a three part system. They consist of a primer, base coat (color) and clear coat.  Older paints may be single stage in nature mixing the clear and paint layers. 

 

On top of your paint sits a variety of contamination and defects typically. Contamination on the paint is generally tackled with washing, iron remover and clay.

 

 

When we talk about defects, there’s spider webs which are microscratches, deep scratches which may or not be able to be taken care of without repainting and other forms of defects as illustrated below. 

 

 

When paint correcting we are only working with the clear coat. So as you can see, the deep scratches can’t be fixed. And some that are just in the clear coat shouldn’t be fixed for fear of striking through or removing too much clear accelerating failure. 

 

So you get a car, and you paint correct it. You’ve removed a little clear coat. You use good technique in washing and over time you develop damage (it happens no matter what we do). You polish again. But because you’ve used good technique along the way, you only need a finish polish to take a little clear coat off. Using this methodology you can get a long time with out of your paint and great looks. 

 

The other scenario is you perform a paint correction and you take it through the automatic car wash. You damage your finish over time. You then need a full correction to repair the damage which takes off more of the clear coat.  When approached this way, you’re going to burn through more clear coat or get less corrections. 

 

So the ultimate answer to your question is to correct as infrequently as possible to preserve the clear coat. We use a paint thickness gauge to know what we are doing to a clients paint (or what they’ve done to it already). 

 

We are not opposed to using a fine polish a couple times a year. It leaves a satisfactory finish for most clients without significantly shortening the life of the paint. We will sometimes use a compound in isolated spots to handle concentrated damage as opposed to going all in everywhere. 

 

Hope this is helpful. 

 

Very helpful.  Thank you!