Can car detailing damage my car clear coat?

Many customers often ask this question. Is car detailing safe? Or can it cause clear coat damage? Well, we can assure you detailing is safe for your paint assuming the correct safety measures have been taken before beginning to polish your car. Machine polishing is an abrading procedure which works on the clear coat to remove a minuscule layer, which will usually contain defects and swirls. Once this layer is removed, it must then be protected using high quality materials to ensure risk of clear coat damage is minimal.

Before detailing a car, we must first confirm whether the paint is single stage which is usually found on classic or older cars. We would then use a paint depth reader to read the thickness of the paint to ensure there is enough clear coat on the car to be worked with. If there is very minimal clear coat remaining, we would not recommend using a machine polisher to detail a car.

Once the paint depth has been identified, we must then find out whether the paint is hard or soft. Softer paint will mean clear coat is removed at a faster rate, this type of paint can usually be found on Japanese cars such as Nissan and Toyota. If the paint is harder, it will mean more work and abrasion via machine polisher is required to remove defects from the clear coat. Harder paint is usually found on German cars such as Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes-Benz.

If these procedures are implemented before beginning to detail your car, risk of clear coat damage is already minimised. On paints where there is less clear coat to work with, or the paint is very soft we would use a dual action polisher which not only spins but oscillates to ensure a higher safety margin.