Some confusion exists regarding polishing and removing swirls in the new ceramic clear coats being used by Mercedes Benz in both Germany and the U.S. To find the straight “scoop” I contacted Jeff Silver, President of
Menzerna U.S.A. Jeff works with Diamler Chrysler here in the U.S. (including the Mercedes plant in Alabama) and has been through the Mercedes plants in Germany.
“Yes,” confirms Jeff, “Mercedes is using a new, harder, clear coat on many of their models.” On the assembly line, vehicles are painted by robot sprayers, proceed to an oven where the finish is baked and travel about 100 yards to a “finessing” area. Here, while the paint is still warm, inspectors walk around the vehicles and mark paint defects with a grease pen. Still in the finessing area, paint technicians then go to work on the vehicle, repairing the defects marked by the inspectors. The finessing area is a bottleneck in any manufacturing plant. Technicians are given a certain amount of time to correct all the paint defects. If a vehicle can not be completed, it must be shunted off the line to another staging area until all the defects are corrected.
Menzerna, working with both BASF and Mercedes Benz has developed a special polish (their code is 106F) for use on the Mercedes assembly line for removing defects in fresh, literally still-warm, paint. This polish is used in the plants in Germany and in the Alabama, Mercedes plant. This polish is not applicable to either the enthusiast or the paint and body shop market. After the paint has cured, Menzerna recommends either
Intensive Polish or
Final Polish II for removing scratches, swirls and paint defects in the current (2004) ceramic clear coats.
To further complicate the issue, BASF, Germany, did develop an ultra, ultra, hard ceramic clear coat that was announced to the trade in 2003. To date, despite tremendous efforts, no polish or compound company (including 3M and Menzerna) has been able to create a polish that could be used by body shops to repair defects in this finish. For this reason, according to Jeff Silver, BASF has shelved this new technology and it was never put in production.
Technology never stands still. It’s only a matter of time until someone discovers a practical and affordable system for polishing and repairing these new clear coats. When that happens, we’ll all have cars with super hard finishes and a whole new range of compounds, polishes and protectants to keep them fresh and shiny!
Terry Freiberg
President
Classic Motoring Accessories
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