Paint correction in Greenacre

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.

Glazes and filler polishes take the first route. The car looks corrected when it leaves and it looks like it did before after a few washes, because the filler has gone and the grooves were always there. Very cheap correction is nearly always this.

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.

Being straight about this is worth more than a sales pitch.

A scratch through the clear coat into the colour or primer cannot be polished out. There is nothing left to level. Chasing it means removing clear coat that is protecting the paint, and past a point you burn through and the panel needs respraying.

The test: run a fingernail across it. If your nail glides over, there is a good chance it corrects. If it catches, it needs paint rather than polish.

Cracked or flaking clear coat, usually on a roof or bonnet, is clear coat failure and cannot be polished either. That panel needs respraying.

One hundred percent correction is rarely the goal and often the wrong one. We would rather agree on ninety percent that is safe than promise a hundred that is not.

It is available mobile and it is the job that needs the most planning of anything we do.

Correction is slow. A two-stage job is not a couple of hours, and if a coating follows it the car then needs time to cure before it gets wet.

Shade is close to essential. Direct summer sun makes product flash off the panel before it can be worked properly, and it makes the panel too hot to work safely. A garage or carport is ideal.

Tell us where the car will be parked and whether you need it driveable in between. Occasionally the honest answer is that the studio is simpler that week.

Correction is the expensive part of any detailing job, and the washing that follows decides how long it lasts.

Automatic brush washes will put the swirls straight back within a handful of visits. So will a single bucket and a dirty mitt.

Two buckets with grit guards, pH-neutral shampoo, clean plush microfibre for drying. Or a coating, which makes correct washing considerably easier and more forgiving.

If that sounds like effort, we handle scheduled maintenance washes.

Older cars often carry single-stage paint with no separate clear coat. It corrects, but the colour comes off on the pad and the approach is gentler, because there is no clear layer to work in. It is a job we enjoy and one to talk through first.

Resprayed panels show up on the depth gauge as far thicker than their neighbours, and they behave differently under the machine. Fresh respray needs time to fully cure before it is polished, and orange peel in a respray is a wet sanding job rather than a polishing one.

None of this rules a car out. It rules out doing it blind, which is why the measurement stage exists.