What is Paint Correction?

Paint Correction should not be confused with Clay Bar, which cleans the paint by removing contaminants. Paint Correction is the removal of paint imperfections caused by fine scratches, swirls, holograms, and oxidation, which makes your paint cloudy or hazy. Oxidation is a chemical process caused by the vehicle's constant exposure to UV sun rays without the protection of a wax or a protective sealant; however, some waxes also build up on the paint over time, eventually reaching the law of diminishing returns.

Ironically, the most common culprit for fine scratches, swirls, and holograms are automated car washes and inexperienced detailers! In spite of innovative soft-brush technology, some car washes still leave fine scratches and swirl marks, which are just micro-scratches, on your clear coat, usually after repeated use. Inexperienced detailers wielding a too-hot rotary buffer, will burn the paint and leave your clear coat looking smudged. Inexperienced Do-it-Yourselfers often fail to rinse thoroughly the dirt off the vehicle with a lubricating shampoo before scrubbing, which results in the dirt itself acting like an abrasive. In addition, they tend to use dirty rags, sponges, and towels when washing and drying, which grinds the dirt into the clear coat causing fine scratches.

Your Clear Coat is a Barrier

Your clear coat protects your paint, so it is appropriate that it take the impact of flying road debris and salt and sand from the Southern California coastline. This flying detritus stings your clear coat and leaves scratches on the hood, bumper, and body side moldings of your car.

Paint Correction Saves Your Shine

On the surface, paint correction techniques sound horrendous. It involves removing and re-leveling 1 to 2 microns of your clear coat using an abrasive material, and then buffing it back out to a shine. However, when you realize that a standard sheet of typing paper is approximately 97 microns, it is a little less terrifying than it sounds. In fact, it makes sense to remove that damaged layer of the clear so the paint can shine through as it was originally designed to do!

Long-term Paint Protection

Now that you understand what causes the need for paint correction, you can understand why doing everything possible to prevent it in the future is equally as important as correcting it!

After buffing your newly corrected paint out to a brilliant shine, Eccentric Shine recommends protecting it using either a long-lasting wax sealant or a new semi-permanent coating that actually repels dirt and scratches for several months at a time.

Without a coating, over time, your vehicle will still require lighter, periodic paint correction as fine scratches and even swirls re-appear over the natural lifetime of your vehicle. However, with Angel Morales monitoring the health of your car’s exterior, your vehicle will remain shiny for longer lengths of time, and with less intensity thanks to regular cleanings, wax or wax sealants, and coatings!