How to Protect Your New Paint Job

Understanding the Importance of Paint Protection

Whether the car has had a full body respray or a car body paint for a single panel, new paint can still be hardening when it leaves the workshop, and how it is treated early on can affect how it looks later.

The paint layers, primer included, help keep water and air off the metal. Where a chip goes through to bare steel, rust can start, and in a damp climate it can spread under the paint around a chip that is left alone.

Choosing the Right Paint System

Modern cars usually have a basecoat for the colour and a clear lacquer on top.

At Coventry Body Shop, all paintwork is sprayed in our spray booth to the paint maker's and the vehicle maker's methods, and colour matching uses the manufacturer's paint code, specialist colour mixing and a spectrophotometer. The clear lacquer protects the colour from sunlight and the weather. Light marks that stay in the lacquer can sometimes be polished out without touching the colour, if enough lacquer is left.

Preparation and Priming: The Foundation of a Lasting Finish

New paint needs a clean, well-prepared surface to bond to. Before any colour goes on, a panel generally needs cleaning, sanding and, where needed, primer.

Wax and grease can stop new paint bonding, and a wash alone may not remove them, so the areas to be painted generally need a cleaner suited to the paint system. Sanding gives the primer a surface to grip and takes out small faults. Coarser paper shapes filler, and finer paper smooths the scratches it leaves.

Primers do different jobs, from helping paint grip bare metal to building a surface over filler that can be sanded level. Bare metal usually needs a primer made to bond to it, and bare steel can rust under new paint.

Blending and Curing: Matching New Paint to Old

On a partial repaint, the new colour has to sit next to paint that may have faded. Where the repair needs it, blending fades the new colour out into the paint around the repair, so the edge is harder to see. It can be part of a panel dent repair and respray, where the repaired panel is painted and the colour may be blended into the panels next to it.

All painting here is done by our director, a former Aston Martin technician and painter. After spraying, the paint maker's technical data give drying times, and some also give a polishing time. Full curing can take longer.

Applying Lacquer: The Final Protective Layer

On a basecoat finish, clear lacquer usually goes over the colour as the last coat. It protects the colour from sun and road dirt and gives the final finish, and it goes on as the paint maker's technical data set out.

Lacquer wears down slowly over the years. Washing that drags grit across it leaves fine scratches, and repeated heavy polishing thins it.

Maintaining Your New Paint Job

While the paint is new, ask the bodyshop before you wax the repair or use a pressure washer close to it. For regular washing, use a pH-neutral shampoo and a soft mitt, rinsing grit off first. Bird droppings and tree sap should come off soon, before the sun bakes them onto the lacquer.

Light swirls and marks in sound lacquer may be suitable for scratch removal and machine polish, which an inspection can confirm. Machine polishing with a cutting compound takes off a little lacquer, and repeated polishing thins it further. We measure paint depth at our workshop.

Stone chips that reach the metal should be dealt with before rust starts. A paint touch-up can fill small chips with paint mixed to the car's colour. A chip down to bare metal, or with rust in it, may need more preparation first, which an inspection can confirm.

Protective Coatings: An Extra Layer of Defence

A ceramic coating adds a thin, cured layer on top of the lacquer and can last longer than wax, depending on the product and the care it gets. It can make the car easier to clean, though it will not stop stone chips. Our paint protection and detailing service covers machine polishing and paint protection after a respray, once the paint has cured; it does not include ceramic coating.

Wax usually needs reapplying sooner than a ceramic coating.

Professional Services for Long-Term Paint Protection

A SMART repair is meant for small, localised scuffs and scratches and can avoid repainting the whole panel. Kerbed wheels can look out of place next to fresh paint, and our alloy wheel refurbishment service can refinish them where an inspection shows the wheel is suitable. Plastic headlight lenses can turn yellow and cloudy with sun, and headlight restoration can often clear them again.

If your new paint has picked up damage, send photos by WhatsApp or through the Send enquiry button and ask for an inspection. Our workmanship guarantee runs for 6 months from collection.