hard or soft paint question

[cadd]

Is there a general guideline as to which car manufactures tend to have softer or harder paints?

[chost10]

Is there a general guideline as to which car manufactures tend to have softer or harder paints?

No ,there's no guideline. Just make a testspot.:xyxthumbs:

[A4 1.8tqm]

A better description may be "workable", meaning how easy the paint is to correct to be swirl/marring free. In my experience a paint referred to as "softer", is one that will be less workable. This is because it is more difficult to finish down marring-free.

Two examples would be:

1- My buddies black Integra Type-R, very "un-workable" or "soft", susceptible to polish induced marring and swirls. Nothing but the finest polish will finish acceptably.

2- My Audi A4 on the other hand I would refer to as "workable" or "hard", it takes a heavy compound to correct swirls, but it is very easy to get a marring free finish and is fairly resistant to swirls.

I think I remember hearing that vettes are both difficult to correct and susceptible to marring and swirls... ughh, but I'm not sure about that.

There may be a general trend among manufacturers, which may help in choosing what to do the first test spot with. When it comes down to it though, the truth is you can't just rely on "oh, a Honda, it has soft paint" you need to do a test spot to see how that specific car reacts to your pad and product combo. Simply too many variables, temperature, age, condition, color, technique, pad, product, machine etc. etc.. :xyxthumbs:

[cadd]

Gotcha..thanks. I had been hearing people a few people mention that a particular car had soft/hard paint. So I was just curious if certain models tend to have soft/hard paint. Thanks for the advice

[Mike Phillips]

Some really good replies in this thread...

For years I've seen members on forums make broad sweeping statements about whether a specific model of vehicle has hard paint or soft paint and as a rule this generally a wrong approach, a better approach is to go out into your car and do some testing.

It helps to have experience working on multiple different cars so you can gauge differences but if you don't have experience then there's no better time to start getting some.

Modern Corvettes, and that would be starting with C4 models, from my experience have what I would call hard paint, so there are times when you can make generalizations but testing is a bona-fide way of finding out.


To test, simply take whatever products you have for removing defects, your applicator pads and tool of choice, if you're working by hand then the same principals apply, and the lay down a single piece of painter's tape and then work a small section to the best of your ability with what you have.

After working the section wipe off the residue and inspect the side you worked on as compared to the "Control" section. Remove the tape for a very distinct demarcation line.

If you improved the the appearance of the paint by removing a majority of the defects the first thing you just proved to yourself is that you can work on your car's paint. By work on your car's paint I mean you can successfully remove defects out of it and for the record I've come across paints so hard they could not be worked for practical reason.

If you see little difference then post back here what you used, how you used it and what you're seeing and someone on this forum will be happy to help steer you towards success by tweaking your process.


:)