Something that’s not spoken about too much in this industry is preserving paint… 

Modern car paint is incredibly thin and consists of a primer coat, base colour coat and clear coat (To give you a rough idea all three of the above combined, are similar in thickness to a post it note!) every year paint is getting thinner and thinner as manufacturers look to save money wherever they can.

 The uppermost layer of this clear coat contains the majority of UV protection, if polished too much this can actually be removed, voiding some manufacturers paint warranty’s!

At the same time paint is getting thinner…Polishing machine, pad and compound technology is rapidly advancing - making the cutting capabilities more aggressive and faster!

With these factors in mind its more important now than ever as professional detailers that we are able to measure the thickness of the paint and understand the importance of preserving the clear coat when working on vehicles.

 So how can we get around this and polish cars safely?

This is where knowledge, training, experience and having the right tools play a huge factor

 We always start prior to any polishing work by giving the vehicle a thorough visual inspection… with experience you can often tell if a panels not factory paint and has had a repair.

The vehicle is then mapped with a paint depth gauge (as in the pictures) which will flag up any areas of concern – the particular gauge we use creates an in-depth report logging minimum, medium, maximum and symmetric measurements. 

Once this has been done, it’s at this point that a plan of action can be made with the best way to approach the paint correction allowing us to manage expectations while knowing we left healthy amounts of clearcoat and UV protection behind.

 #PaintThicknessGauge #Professional #PaintCorrection