Science of Scratches

What most everyday drivers don’t know is that there is a science behind scratches, and removing them isn’t as easy as a simple wax or machine buff makes it look. Many people fall victim to thinking their paint is in pristine condition simply because it’s been recently detailed,only to wind up disappointed a few months later over their car’s newly visible scratches. The depth of a scratch determines whether it can be simply buffed out or has to be painfully repainted. If you were to examine a scratch as part of a cross section, you would notice the surface’s different layers: most commonly metal, primer, color, and clear coat.

However, at Detailing Devils we make use of our clear coat products to prevent cars’ surfaces from scratches and stains. A clear coat refers to the clear top layer of paint that is applied over a colored base coat, and is found on most modern cars. Clear coat increases the paint’s durability, gloss and resistance to harmful environmental effects such as UV rays; similar to a more permanent wax. The more you remove, the less effective the clear coat gets. That means every time you polish, you’re compromising the clear coat’s ability to protect the colored paint layer, rendering it more vulnerable to scratches, fading, and discoloration. To help combat this problem, some suggest preservation (filling) over correction (cutting) because it’s the best and only way to keep the clear coat as close to factory thickness as possible without repainting. Before removing or remedying a surface scratch, you must understand what type of scratch it is. And for every other dilemma, Detailing Devils is always at your service.