What makes VW paint so hard?

[skoles]

I've detailed a co-workers Passat and my sisters Beetle and was not only impressed with the fit & finish of both cars, but how tough the paint was.

Both cars were a few years old and have many highway miles. The amount of chips on both were almost nonexistant. And those chips that I did see still had a layer of paint underneath them, so they must be thick.

Compared to my car, I can practically scratch it with a fingernail. Since I need to get a repaint down the line to fix some accident damages what does VW add to get such a hard coat?

[Accumulator]

skoles- I can't give you a good answer, but some VWs and most Audis (note these cars are corporate cousins) just have very hard clearcoats. My Audis are (according to the Porsche/Audi dealer's paintshop, and this is a good dealer) painted with Spies-Hecker brand paint and it's simpl hard stuff. When I have paintwork done on them, the shop uses S-H paint and the repainted areas are, for practical purposes, as hard as the factory paint. The repainted areas do chip easier though.

If you're gonna get any paintwork done and you want hard paint, I'd consider finding a shop that's familiar with S-H paint, I hear it's not the easiest stuff to work with so you don't want them using it for the first time on *your* car