Best time of day to look at the condition of your paint?

[Doppler]

With the time change I have noticed that an hour before sunset is the easiest time to find the imperfections in the paint of my two cars. When do you find the easiest time to look for imperfections?

[Murr1525]

Re: Best time of day to look at the condition of your paint?

Well, different light will pick up different imperfections...

Could be a bright sunny day at noon.

Or under the bright parking lot lights of a shopping center or gas station at night.

[theamcguy]

Re: Best time of day to look at the condition of your paint?

Noon day with sun directly overhead is bad. What you want is the sun the lowest in the sky you can get (early morning, late afternoon) you want to park your car facing the sun and position yourself to use to the sunlight to see the imperfections and scratches. The lower the sun the easier it is. This is the reason used car lots use a cheap string of lights above cars, overhead light tends to make everything shinier and actually hides scratches it is low light that really shows them up.