How to tell hard paint from soft paint? Is there a chart somewhere?

[Mike Phillips]

How to tell hard paint from soft paint? Is there a chart somewhere?


This question came into our customer care staff and they sent the question to me. I cover this topic in my how-to book and of course in all my detailing classes. I'm also 100% confident I've addressed this multiple times on the forum over the years but it's always good to revisit a popular topic and provide a little education for those new to car detailing.


Here's the real deal....

The ONLY way to know if the paint on a car is hard or soft means 2 things.

1: You must do a Test Spot.

2: You must have experience to be able to gauge the results of the Test Spot.


Anyone can do a test spot but it takes experience to be able to read the results of the test spot to understand if the paint you're standing in front of is hard or soft. The ONLY way to get experience is to buff out a LOT of cars and then EACH TIME you do a Test Spot to each car, lock into your brain how the paint reacted to whatever it is YOU use to buff car paint with.

There will NEVER be an accurate and up-to-date chart that makes "knowing" what the paint is, hard or soft, on every car pumped out of an assembly line from the past into the future. It's also doesn't work to make generalizations, which is what most of the experts in the car detailing world do.


The reason experience helps is because technique is a huge factor when doing a test spots. Assuming a person has a great polish or compound, or even a great AIO, and assuming they are using the right pad for the "product" they start their test with, and assuming they have a polisher that is capable of doing correction work, the next variable is technique. I know from experience from answering questions professionally for going on 17 years now, (professionally means I get paid for it), that when doing a Test Spot, technique will make a huge difference in a person's ability to inspect the results and accurately determine the results.

If a person does not have a lot of experience, that's okay, ALL OF US started out with ZERO experience including yours truly. But that is the qualification that enables a person to do ONE TEST SPOT and ACCURATELY determine if the paint is hard or soft.


If you're new to polishing paint and are wondering if the paint on your car is hard or soft, in this video we made a few years ago, I explain in full detail exactly how to do a test spot PLUS how to do a test spot using the least aggressive approach, which is what we call a Best Practice.


Watch the video and you will learn how to do a Test Spot.






I hope that helps...

[Mike Phillips]

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If you have a copy of my how-to book, The Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine, look on pages 7 and 8 as I cover this topic in detail - no pun intended....


Here's pictures of that section in the book....










And if you don't have a copy of my how-to book, you can click on the pictures in my signature line below to get your own copy.

If you read the Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine from cover to cover, you will KNOW more than most people that call themselves a detailer. I guarantee it.

[Mike Phillips]

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Here's an article I re-wrote in 2011 - about 8 years ago being that it's 2019 as I type this, that shares an example of making generalizations about some models of cars having hard paint. (Experts do this all the time)


Audi Soft Paint - Making Generalizations about Hardness and Softness

[Mike Phillips]

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And here's an article I wrote back in 2008 on this topic of making generalizations on paint hardness or softness.... that would be 11 years ago being that I'm typing this in 2019

Paint Workability - The Hardness or Softness of your car's paint


Here's a quote I forgot about that starts the article,


You don't how hard or soft your paint is until you go out into your garage and work on your car -Mike Phillips


So while it's good to do research on the Internet to find an article like this one, at some point the rubber meets the road and you simply need to go out into your garage and do a Test Spot or two...

[Mike Phillips]

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And if you're a lurker, nothing wrong with that but if you have a question, join the forum and ask it.


Click here to join the AutogeekOnline Detailing Discussion Forum