Paint correction in Riverwood

Think of a scratch as a trench in the top layer of paint. You either fill the trench, or you lower the ground on either side until there is no trench. That is the whole of it, and which one you are being sold is the question to ask.

The filling approach is what a glaze does. It is genuinely convincing on the day, and it lasts a handful of washes. If a correction quote is far below the others, this is usually why: nothing has been removed.

Correction does the second thing. A machine polisher with an abrasive compound removes a microscopic amount of clear coat until the surface is level again. The scratch is not hidden, it is gone, because the paint around it has come down to meet it.

That is why correction changes the colour rather than just adding shine. Light finally has a flat surface to reflect off, so it returns as a defined image instead of scattering. On black paint the difference is startling.

Washing, almost entirely. Automatic car washes with spinning brushes are the worst offender, because those brushes carry grit from every car that went through before yours. A dirty wash mitt, a single bucket, or drying with the wrong towel will all do it more slowly.

They are worst on dark colours, not because dark paint scratches more easily but because the contrast between scratch and surrounding paint is far higher. The same swirls on silver are nearly invisible.

New cars arrive with them too, from transport and dealer lot preparation. Very few leave a dealership genuinely defect-free.

Stages are polishing passes, and each one is more labour.

Single stage is one step. It removes lighter marring and lifts gloss considerably, and it suits well-kept or newer paint.

Two stage adds a cutting step to remove defects and then a refining step to bring clarity back. It removes the large majority of defects and is the usual recommendation before any coating.

Three stage is for show cars, dark paint held to a very high standard, or heavily neglected finishes. The time rises steeply for a difference most people would struggle to see in daylight.

The refining step matters more than expected. Cutting alone leaves its own fine haze, which is why a job that stops after the cut looks impressive under fluorescent light and disappointing in the sun.

Counterintuitive, but usually yes, and lightly. Transport contamination and dealer lot washing leave marring on most deliveries, and dark colours show all of it.

The advantage of doing it at delivery is that the correction needed is minimal, often a single stage. Less correction means less clear coat removed, and the coating goes onto the best surface that car will ever have.

Do it three years in and you are paying for a full correction as well as the coating, on paint with less thickness left to work with.

Etching is a defect in the clear coat rather than on it. A bird dropping left in the sun, or hard water dried on a hot bonnet, eats a shallow crater into the surface. A wash removes the deposit and leaves the crater.

Shallow etching corrects the same way swirls do: the surface around it is levelled until the crater is gone. Deep etching that has gone a long way into the clear coat sometimes reduces rather than disappears, and we will say which after a test section.

Once corrected, a coating gives you the time to get the next dropping off before it bites, which on a car parked under a tree in Riverwood is the whole game.