How Many Corrections On Life Of Car

hi there i have always wondered how many times can you 1 or 2 step correction a car before you go threw the clearcoat. Is it a lot or only a few times just kind of curious, sorry for the stupid question just a noob.

 

It's not a stupid question, just a very difficult one. You cannot answer this the same for any car.

A better way to do this, would be to figure out how much clearcoat, on average, is removed when doing a certain step. Then measure your CC with a paint thickness guage.

I don't remember the specifics, but you do need a minimum thickness of clearcoat before the film is compromised.

 

+1!!! I don't see how one can perform professional level work without a PTM!!! I have always gone with the two corrections, 1 sanding in a finish. That's generally pretty safe unless the previous service was a madman with a rotary and wool pad!!! But, end of the day, the PTM doesn't lie!!!

 

You should be able to get about 4-5 years of regular polishing out of paint. (By that I mean multi-step jobs a couple times a year).

But again, every paint is different.

This is what I was told/read.

But for instance, say you have a car with 150 microns of paint on the hood, measure the door jamb (where it's least amount of clear--if any) and it's at 110, that's 40 microns to play with.. If you heavy polish, polish, finish and you remove 3-6 microns then you know you can polish the car heavily at least 5-7 times and still have enough clear to protect from UV damage.

Rule of thumb, a car should only be HEAVY polished once a year--but some clients/people like more :shrug:

 

If you're super meticulous with your washing regimen, you won't need to polish your car very often. A light polish for the inevitable scratch or swirl, and then a jewelling step, and it'll be money.

I haven't done any real correction on my S2000 in over a year. The most recent time I put a machine on it, I did some spot scratch removal, cleaned up the rockers from hitting cones at autocrosses, and jewelled the finish with 85RD. I figure I took, at most, 2-3 microns off the spots I worked hard.

 

I'm surprised you don't have PPF on your S2000....

 

I bought it used, and it was too late to put PPF on. :doh: Had I bought it new, I definitely would have had PPF applied, probably to the whole front of the car, all the way back to the trailing edge of the front fenders.

Unfortunately, production stopped in August of this year, so I'm too late to get a brand new one.

 

Never too late to put PPF, polish it up and get it close to perfect and apply. :gidiup:
I was thinking about it this summer as when I went to go see my tint guy to put PPF on my headlights to replace the old stuff he was gonna give me a pretty good deal on a front end coverage but just didnt have the money then.

 

Why let it get worse... grab some touch up paint and make it look the best it ever has and get some real protection!

 

Well, the other problem is that the front bumper (I'm on my third since I bought the car) has non-original paint on it. At some point this year, one of us clobbered the hell out of a cone at high speed, and the paint cracked a little under the passenger side headlight. So, I'm waiting for the autocross season to come to a close, at which point I'll have the bumper reshot (again).

As to the touch up paint...to tell you the truth, touch up work is something I'm not very good at. There's something about it that I just don't get. Richy gave me some advice, but I've yet to try it. Maybe this weekend.

The rockers really aren't all that badly beaten up, given that the car spends a fair amount of time on Hoosier race tires, which throw up a heck of a lot of debris. Maybe I'll do the PPF after all, you guys have me considering it. You're right. Why let it get worse?

 

I was told by a meguiars rep about 6 years ago that you can effectively and safely use a combo like 83, then 80 with megs polishing pads and the PC around 15-20 times on your average car.

Now if you have it repainted from the bodyshop, that number will go up! If you have a higher end car like a ferrari, I believe there is less paint to start, so that number will drop! The starting point is crucial!

If you are polishing with something like Menzerna FPII, and not trying to remove the defects with a lot of abrasives, then you can probably polish longer than you will keep the car! (no abrasives = moving paint around via heat = less clear removal)

 

You'll need to take some paint thickness readings to determine what you can and can't do. The typical paint job on a new car is about 110 - 130 microns of paint although I've sean readings of around 60 on the roof of every Infiiti I've done. A reading this low means you can glaze and wax and thats it! This is why you need a PTG if you are going to get into paintwork correction. A typical two step polish will only remove 1-2 microns of paint. I mean using a combo like the mentioned Megs 83/80 or Menz Power Finish/ 85RD etc. Even adding a third step will only remove another micron at most unless you are doing some very heavy compounding with wool and a compound like 105. Unless you have a PTG, I wouldn't offer my clients anything more than a two step. Happiness is never having to say you're sorry! The Defelsko units are a little pricey but there are less expensive units available that are just as accurate. Maybe someone will chime in with a different brand you could look into.

 

A bunch of us, myself included, use the highlinemeter.com. It's great; I wouldn't be without it. It's also very useful when shopping for used cars - you've got a pretty accurate way of knowing if a car has been wrecked, without even running a Carfax on it.

JL measured the Highline against the Delfesko that he had. The readings were, for all practical purposes, identical. He sold his Delfesko soon thereafter.

 

Yeah to me this is just another reminder about how proper maintenance is always your best best. I personally believe that very light swirls are just a fact of life on a darker colored daily driven car. Especially on my Acura with very soft single stage paint. I machine polish my own car once a year with a light polish followed by a jewling stage and that keeps my 12 year old car looking great. Just my 2 cents though. Paint should be thinker. Because clear coats is expensive it is an easy way for car manufactures to cut costs by spaying clear on as thin as they acceptably can.

 

how do you know the car isnt 20/20/20 instead of 40/40/40???? base, paint, clear...does your meter have three zones? or just one overall?

Yeah, that seems to be about right - 1-2 microns...so in theory, 15 polishing rounds would be a good estimate as to how many times you can polish before a repaint!

heck I think, without having measured, that 105/205 is only going to remove 3 at most in comparison to 83/80, but its going to have a better finish!

 

1. I have talked with a few guys who have purposely burned through the different layers to measure the actual thickness.

2. You can only polish through a percentage of the clear before you risk causing cc failure. This will happen well before you get all the way through it.

3. 105/205 is way too abrasive to be using on a regular basis. Try 105/205 to get it to where you want it and then maintain it with 205. Once its polished out properly once, you shouldn't need to hit it with something like 105 again.:thumb:

 

Depth and clarity are lost when doing any paint correction once too many times and even correction itself never delivers the very best colour, depth and clarity anyhow.

I like to do just two per the average life of a one owner modern car then from there just fill the defects in for a year with glare and maintain the finish regularly with pro polish or sahara to top it up and fill any new swirls.

we have just started developing a reflow system to eliminate the need for correction altogether
results so far are quite good.