You may need paint correction if, when you wash your car and ensure everything is done gently, you still find marks that look like little spider webs in the paint. If you love taking care of your vehicle, you probably wash it and may hand wax it or apply a coating to keep it looking its best. Many people don’t feel comfortable doing this for good reasons. If done incorrectly, it can damage the exterior of the car. Many times, people need to get paint correction to fix problems with the car’s paint. This process is also called machine polishing or swirl-mark removal.
What Exactly Is Paint Correction?
You may have heard about paint correction but not know all it entailed. It’s a process that allows minor imperfections and scratches to be removed from the paint. An electric polisher is used along with a specialty cutting compound and a microfiber buffing pad to apply this process to a car. When paint correction is done by a professional, they will go down into the clear coat of the car’s paint and get rid of all the scratches. This may be by removing them or leveling them. It’s best to leave this process to a professional because, if done incorrectly, it can cause a lot of damage to the clear coat.
Degrees of Paint Correction
Correcting a vehicle’s paint is done according to the damage in the clear coat. The paint correction cost will have a lot to do with the amount of correction your vehicle needs. The first degree of paint correction is using just one step to polish the clear coat with a pad and a cutting compound. When there are only small swirl marks and minor marring of the clear coat, they can be removed in just one step.
If a car has scratches in the clear coat and mid-sized swirl marks in the paint, it’s necessary for a second-degree session of paint correction. This uses different combinations of pads and polishes to combat the problems. It’s often done with a polish that is more abrasive in the first step, and then a finer abrasive compound is used to eliminate any light scratches caused in that initial step.
If your car needs the third degree of paint correction, this will be done in three steps. This is necessary when the paint has significant, deep swirl marks and other imperfections like marring. To begin, a machine polisher is used with a strong cutting compound and a pad to get deep into the damage. Next, at least two more polishings are needed that use increasingly small grit to get the damage completely smoothed out.
Do You Need Paint Correction?
If you plan to place a film or protective coating on your vehicle, generally, this process will need to be done first. Paint correction always has to be customized to the car based on the paint type, the specific imperfections, and the preferences of the car’s owner. Paint correction can be done to eliminate fine scratches, swirl marks, spider webbing, and more. It can also remove water spots and damage from the DIY application of protective products. It can also remove paint sealants, wax, and ceramic coatings applied to the paint. It can also help with significant fading of the color due to UV rays on the vehicle long term.
Some people try to get rid of ceramic coatings with commercial chemical products designed to do this. However, it’s easy to damage the clear coat with these products, and that can mean even more problems.
Removing the Clear Coat
The polishing done in paint correction uses an electric polisher and cutting compound to remove it. A polish substance is spread onto the paint job of the car before the polisher is used. This will allow the electric polisher to have the friction it needs to get through that clear coat. The deeper the scratches are in the clear coat, the deeper the polisher has to go to get rid of it. These polishers have different grit levels and are meant for various purposes. Some are made to fill in scratches. Some are made to get down into the clear coat until the scratch can be removed.
Having a professional do the machine polishing is a good idea, but it’s especially important if the scratches are deep. It’s also a good idea to let a pro handle the paint correction before you add a protective coating because if the clear coat is thinned out too much, the coating may not be able to bond to the paint job’s surface. It can also make the vehicle’s paint look dull.
Do You Really Need This Procedure Before a Ceramic Coating?
If you have paint issues, then yes. Applying a ceramic coat to the surface causes it to harden and create a strong layer on the surface. If the paint has problems, such as scratches, the ceramic coating will amplify them. Its transparent coating should only be put on a smooth surface without major flaws like marring and scratches. In essence, it would call even more attention to the imperfections on the surface.
When you want paint correction near me so that you can improve the paint job or get it ready for a protective coating, we, at Elite Auto, are pros who can perform this process on even intense scratches. It’s essential to have a pro provide this service so that the paint is not further damaged in the process.
