Type of paint? Soft or hard...

[SX4DUDE2013]

I have a 2008 Suzuki Sx4 crossover (Sunlight Copper) and a 2008 Toyota Sienna (silverish) and a 2009 Suzuki Sx4 Sport (Black). Do Toyota's and Suzuki's tend to have soft paint??? Will it be okay to use M205 and a DA on them???

[Andrew Wilson]

Re: Type of paint? Soft or hard...

If the paint is factory OEM paint, 205 works wonders with the DA. You shouldn't have any issues with the paint being too soft.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Type of paint? Soft or hard...

M205 is pretty mild but your total cut will vary depending on whether you use it with a polishing pad or a finishing pad, and what speed you run the buffer at.

As far as paint hardness or softness for a given brand of vehicle, we don't like to make broad generalizations regarding same. Within a given brand the paint systems can change without notice, even for a specific model within that brand or partway through a model year. You can't really know for sure until you start working on a specific car.

[andyo]

Re: Type of paint? Soft or hard...

what are the signs of hard or soft paint?

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Type of paint? Soft or hard...

what are the signs of hard or soft paint?

Hard paint will retain it's original defects - ie, the ones you're trying to get out - even when using a very aggressive such as a wool pad, M105 and a rotary buffer, or even when repeated passes of a less aggressive combination makes little or no progress. It seems no matter what you do, the defects just won't go away.

Soft paint will mar easily even when you are taking out the defects. Often you end up trading one set of defects for another, and to the untrained eye it just seems like no matter what you do you still have defects. While this is true, it is important to understand, and determine, that the defects you see post buffing aren't the same ones that existed pre buffing. Without being to tell the difference an operator might assume he's dealing with hard paint and make the mistake of getting more and more aggressive. Frustration will build when this more aggressive approach continually fails to produce a beautiful finish.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between trying to remove defects and inflicting them in the first place when it comes to defining hard or soft paint. We generally use these two terms when describing how easy or difficult it is to polish paint. Put another way, how "polishable" a paint is. Scratch resistance, or the lack thereof, is a totally different dynamic. Some paints can be quite scratch prone but those scratches are then extremely difficult to remove. One is a cutting action - literally like cutting with a knife - the other is an abrading action and paint can respond very differently to the two.

A few examples from recent experience might help:

C6 Corvettes are notorious for having very hard paint, paint that is hard to polish out. Chrysler Crossfires tend to be the same way. Both will become swirled messes, however, if improper washing, drying and general maintenance techniques are used. Trying to remove these defects often requires some pretty aggressive processes.

Most all of the Mazda Miata's we've encountered were quite scratch prone but they polished out with a fairly mild approach - often as simple as M80 on a polishing pad at a fairly low speed or even M205 on a finishing pad, depending on the amount of defects. It was easy to remove the defects without marring the paint, although an aggressive approach would indeed mar the paint. No need to go aggressive when a more mild approach gets the job done.

Two recent Honda Fit projects have shown the paint to be so extremely sensitive that even ScratchX 2.0 applied by hand with a foam applicator left a fair bit of marring to the surface. A finishing pad via D/A with a good cleaner wax like M66 or D151 was all it took to bring up a beautiful finish. Similarly, a 1981 Ferrari 512 Boxer with original single stage black paint was frustratingly sensitive, so much so that even M07 hand applied was problematic. A very light touch with M80 on a polishing pad removed the defects but the haze only really went away with an equally gentle application of NXT Tech Wax 2.0 via finishing pad. This same process on the Corvette or Crossfire wouldn't do much at all.