What is Paint Correction?

Paint Correction Saves Your Shine

Paint Correction should not be confused with Clay Bar, which cleans the paint by removing contaminants. Paint Correction is the removal of imperfections in the clear coat caused by fine scratches, swirls, holograms, and oxidation that make your paint look cloudy or hazy.

Your Clear Coat is a barrier that protects your paint, so it is appropriate that it take the impact of salt and sand from the Hawaiian coastline, as well as the dings and stings of flying road debris that leave scratches on the hood, bumper, and body side moldings of your car.

Ironically, automated car washes and inexperienced detailers are also culprits.

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.

Unfortunately, inexperienced detailers wielding a too-hot rotary buffer can burn the paint and leave your clear coat looking smudged. Do-it-Yourself car enthusiasts who do not properly rinse the grit from your vehicle before scrubbing it using a rough rag, often results in the dirt itself acting like an abrasive.

Don't Try This at Home

Paint correction 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, you realize just how fine and meticulous a process it is, requiring a very experienced paint correction specialist like Brian Engcabo to do the job!

By removing that damaged layer of the clear coat, the actual paint itself can shine through as it was originally designed to do!

Paint correction will also repair oxidation, 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.

After buffing your newly corrected paint out to a brilliant shine, Purity Automotive Detailing recommends protecting it using either a long-lasting wax sealant or a semi-permanent coating that actually repels dirt and scratches for several months at a time. Without a coating, your vehicle will still require lighter, periodic paint correction as fine scratches and even swirls re-appear over the natural lifetime of your vehicle.

Check out our section on Ceramic Coatings to more information on how to protect that corrected shine for anywhere between 1 to 5 years with no more need for waxing or buffing!