Hard or Soft Paint?

Brosekiah · 06-25-08, 02:35

How do you know if your car has hard or soft paint? Is there a list somewhere? A few cars Im wondering about are:

Jeep Cherokee
Chevy S-10
Volkswagon Passat
Toyota Prius

I am also planning on starting a mobile detailing business once I get some more capital and after a lot more research.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

Bigpoppa3346 · 06-25-08, 02:44

A car with hard paint will be less likely to get marred, but is more difficult to remove defects.

A car with soft paint will be more likely to get marred, but it is easier to remove defects. However, it can be difficult to finish down "clean", or without micromarring from polishing on some of these paints.

There are exceptions to the rule, with cars having seemingly soft paint but being difficult to correct, and the "sticky" clearcoat.

drew.haynes · 06-25-08, 02:53

I've only worked on one Cherokee, I'd say medium. It's correctable by PC for sure.
Chevy s10 - if it's like other GMs I've done, probably soft if it's solid color paint and hard if it's metallic.
VW - usually really hard.
Toyota - no idea

jbone · 06-25-08, 04:01

I remember a thread around here about this same exact topic where it was basically broken down by brand of car, however it was mentioned that even specific models, years, colors, etc. vairy in hardness. I'll try to find it.

Accumulator · 06-26-08, 09:19

There are some general trends but even then you can encounter surprises...Audis are rock hard but there are a few A4/S4 cars (usually in Nagaro (sp?) blue for some reason) that are incredibly soft.

So with that caveat, I'd expect the S10 to be medium hard if metallic and a bit softer if a solid color. The VW will probably be harder than the S10 no matter what color either is.

VroomVroom · 06-26-08, 10:20

Well said. I'm guessing the Prius is clearcoated...no? If so, my experience is that it is HARD - right up their with the Audi. I still remember detailing a black Avalon for the first time and wondering why nothing I tried had any effect.

lecchilo · 06-26-08, 11:26

You'll never be sure until you put some pads/products to use on it... for example, compared to the Avalon detailer above, I've never encountered a Toyota with anything but very soft to soft paint. I've also yet to encounter an Audi with a soft cc, but I have had a few issues with some harder paints behaving like softer ones, in that they are pretty easy to marr and hard to finish down perfectly.

In general though, from my experience, Japanese cars have paint on the soft side, Euro cars (Audi being the worst, BMW close 2nd, and VW similar to BMW) very hard paints and American cars are pretty damn random, even for the same make, model, year. The biggest exception to the "rule" above is Porsche, which has extremely soft paint usually.

Purewatre Dzine · 06-26-08, 02:07

How does one tell if a car has hard paint or soft paint? By feel or is there some machine or tool?

lecchilo · 06-26-08, 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Purewatre Dzine

How does one tell if a car has hard paint or soft paint? By feel or is there some machine or tool?

When you have enough experience with a lot of different paints you can usually tell not only by how much a certain polish/pad combo cuts, but also what kind of finish it leaves behind. As I said above though, there are some special cases that randomly arise and you never know what you're getting until you try a few test spots. In general though, soft paint will correct much easier... if you take a PC, white LC pad, and 106ff to Porsche paint with moderate swirling, you might get it near perfect with just 1 pass over a certain area, whereas on an Audi you'll be asking yourself if you just had a dream that the PC was polishing the paint or if you actually did it.

Purewatre Dzine · 06-26-08, 02:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by lecchilo

When you have enough experience with a lot of different paints you can usually tell not only by how much a certain polish/pad combo cuts, but also what kind of finish it leaves behind. As I said above though, there are some special cases that randomly arise and you never know what you're getting until you try a few test spots. In general though, soft paint will correct much easier... if you take a PC, white LC pad, and 106ff to Porsche paint with moderate swirling, you might get it near perfect with just 1 pass over a certain area, whereas on an Audi you'll be asking yourself if you just had a dream that the PC was polishing the paint or if you actually did it.

Haha that was funny about the Audi thing. Looks liek i'll tackle those cars with more experience. Im going to start off on my own car, which is a Qno color code white 98 nissan maxima.

Chris223 · 06-26-08, 02:59

Isn't Toyota known for SOFT paint? I know Lexus is, and that's made by Toyota. Honda is also known for soft paint.

SpoiledMan · 06-27-08, 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris223

Isn't Toyota known for SOFT paint? I know Lexus is, and that's made by Toyota. Honda is also known for soft paint.

Throw what you know about Honda paint being soft out the window. I have a new Odyssey with some really minor marring. FPII and a rotary didn't touch it at all. I was hoping to jump on a quick spot and it didn't happen. I'll see what it does end up taking to fix it.