Orange County’s Paint Refinement Specialists
Restore “showroom” gloss by removing oxidation, swirls, and light scratches.
Enhance Your Vehicles Paint Gloss & Clarity Through Swirl Removal
Paint refinement, what is it? It is the removal of swirls and imperfections from the paint’s surface in order to increase paint color depth resulting in a high gloss finish. Every vehicle paint condition varies but we always aim to remove up to 90% of the imperfections found on your paint. We do this by performing a cut & polishing process called a multi-step paint refinement often know as a paint correction.
It’s good to know and understand that some scratches and imperfections are just far too deep to remove. This is often because of how deep the scratch is, the type of imperfection or clear coat being too thin making it unsafe to correct.
All those components are taken into consideration to make a proper judgement on what we can safely remove off your paint surface. It’s about knowing when to stop ahead of time to keep enough integrity in the paint.
Yes, New Vehicles Need Paint Refinement
You might be thinking there is no way! Well even if you’ve had the vehicle for 6 months or straight off the lot chances are you still require a multi-step paint refinement. You see most vehicles get handled by multiple people just in transport alone, whether by railroad, plane, or even boat.
During this time the vehicles are moved, washed, transported, stored and you cannot escape natural elements like iron fall, bird droppings just to name a couple. The honest reality is all it takes to get swirls on your paint is a handful of improper washes. If you’d like to keep your paint in great condition you have to properly maintain the vehicles paint just like it’s tires, brakes, and drivetrain components. Paint refinements are a commitment to your vehicle and require care in order to keep that amazing high gloss finish for years to come. We always include a ceramic coating service with a paint refinement in order to accomplish the best opportunity to protect that freshly refined paint finish.
Top Guard USA Paint Correction Process
New, classic, exotic, or luxury vehicles in all condition types get the same methodical process performed in order to provide the best possible result while being efficient.
1. Wheels, Tires, and Fender wells
It starts with cleaning all the road grime from the fender wheels, wheel faces, wheel barrels and tires
3. Decontamination Wash
This process is where we really start to remove some of the contaminants, waxes and sealants that may be on the car already.
5.Claybar Treatment
The final step in decontaminating the paints surface. Here we use a clay bar treatment also known as a mechanical decontamination process to remove embedded iron and dirt from the clear coat, leaving a like glass smooth finish.
7.Correction Process (Compound)
Using a machine specifically designed to remove swirls, a number of cutting pads and compound are used to safely remove swirls in this process. Depending on the paint hardness this can involve one or multiple steps.
9.Final Panel Wipe Down
The final inspection comes with a final wipe down to ensure no residue is hiding any imperfections. A vital step before adding any protection to the surface.
11.Tire & Plastic Trim Dressing
As the vehicle has reached completion, we dress all black trims and tires giving it that extra pop. We aim for a nice non greasy satin finish.
2. Pre-Soak Wash (Contactless)
Our first step to prepping the vehicle, this step removes as much grime off the surface as possible. This minimizes potential marring keeping the paint correction process efficient.
4.Chemical Decontamination
Here we use a special iron remover chemical that melts away most of the iron fallout that does not come off with a decontamination soap.
6.Protect sensitive areas
We like to ensure any areas that are not painted are protected from any abrasives that can stain or damage those areas, so we go through the car and tape off all plastic trim, rubber moldings and chrome.
8.Refinement Process (Polishing)
After compounding we refine the paint to increase color depth and clarity by removing micro scratches left behind from the correction process. Most of the time this will be a one step process, but in some cases, it can be a two-step process.
10.Paint Protection
This is where we add one or two layers of protection to your paint. We use ceramic coatings as they are robust with proper maintenance.
12.Exterior Glass & Mirrors
We go through all the glass and mirrors one last time to ensure we leave a streak free finish.
How Long Do Paint Corrections Last?
Once completed your vehicle’s paint with have tons of paint depth and clarity looking better than ever. The key afterwards is proper maintenance. You definitely don’t want to take your vehicle back through an automated car wash that use high-speed bristles. These bristles hit your paint surface, a lot of the times with embedded dirt and debris from previous washes. This in no time will hinder the paints recently accomplished high gloss finish.
Keeping the vehicles newly pristine finish requires the use of the right tools, washing techniques and high-quality products.
Simply getting your vehicle hand washed doesn’t mean you’ll accomplish this, especially if low-quality wash mitts and drying towels are being used. These will always act as an abrasive to your paint and add swirls back into the paint diminishing that high gloss finish.
When the appropriate steps are taken to hand wash your vehicle, it may need very light polishing once a year or every other year to maintain that Top Guard USA standard. We always do a ceramic coating at the completion of the paint correction/refinement process in order to extend that time frame as long as possible. Remember proper maintenance is key even when you add protective coatings.
Ceramic Coatings
As time progresses ceramic coatings are getting more and more popular due to great characteristics, they obtain that can last for years with proper maintenance.
The ceramic coatings characteristics help repel dirt, road grime and even water so it does not embed as easily onto the surface. If you decide to properly hand wash the vehicle, you’ll quickly notice how easily the majority of the dirt comes off.
This doesn’t mean that your protected from rock chips or any other forms of impact on your paint. Bird droppings, water spots and iron fall out can still etch into the paint if left for too long, so we recommend getting those off as quickly as possible. Don’t let anyone trick you into thinking a ceramic coating is maintenance free.
Clear Coats: Hardnesses and the Differences
Understanding the difference will impact the process needed and the results. You' might have heard of these terms before or you may have never heard of them before.
Clear coat is a protective layer on the paint that can vary in hardness depending on what vehicle you're driving. These generally fall into 4 distinct categories, soft, medium, medium-hard, and hard.
Soft Clear Coat: This clear coat is relatively flexible and less rigid. This means its more prone to scratches and swirls from washing, towels and even light contact. The good news with this is the correction process is much easier to do however careful procedures have to be in place in order to avoid adding new defects. This type of clear coat is commonly found in Japanese vehicles like Honda’s, Toyotas, but not exclusively as we see these soft clear coats used on Tesla’s certain GM, Ford, and like manufacturers.
Medium Clear Coat: Medium hardness clear coats are more scratch resistant and require standard pads, compounds and polishes. These are also arguable the “easiest” to correct as you don’t get many holograms from the compound process and don’t have to get super aggressive with correcting the vehicle. This type of clear coat is most commonly found on pre-2000’s Mercedez Benz’s, BMW and some Acura.
Medium-Hard Clear Coat: Med-Hard clear coats are a lot more robust and resistant towards scratches and swirls compared to soft clear coat. This takes more effort to correct as more steps are needed in order to really get a high-quality finish. This is properly done with firmer pads and aggressive compounds. Vehicles that fall in this category range from Ford, BMW, and Dodge.
Hard Clear Coat: Highly rigid and toughest of the clear coat categories. Hard clear coat is very resistant to scratching, marring under normal uses. The vehicles with this clear coat require more aggressive correcting pads, compounds, and longer working time to correct. This brings higher risk on areas with small amounts of clear coat as it can burn through it from the mixture of aggressive pads and compounds. Once completed though you get a very crisp high gloss finish. Vehicles that fit this category vary but are primarily European vehicles like Audi, Mercedes Benz, Porsche even some Maserati.
No matter what type of clear coat hardness your vehicle has we have the tools and products to get the job done right. We also invest a lot of time learning the newest tools and products to ensure we maintain that high standard.
Tools & Products for the Best Results
Paint correction and refinement require specialized professional grade tools in order to achieve that high quality finish were aiming for. Here is a bit more on those tools and products.
Polishers: The primary tool used to accomplish these goals. They come in different sizes like 1”, 2”, 3”, 5” and a variety types like dual action, rotary, and forced rotation. Each one of these types of polishers serve a purpose depending on the panel’s complexity and size. The smaller the surface area you’ll get more precision and accessibility out of a 3” vs a 5” polisher and a 5” will be a lot more efficient on a hood.
Correction/Polishing Pads: These pads come in a variety of types in material and also firmness in order to accomplish maximum cut or polishing depending on what needs to get done. Even though there is a general starting point, we will perform test areas to determine what your vehicles clear coat will specifically like in combination of compounds/polishes.
Compounds & Polishes: Compounds and polishes also come in a variety of strength or cutting/polishing power. Compounds are engineered for heavy cutting which will remove swirls and scratches.
Polishes also come in a variety of strengths but are engineered to jewel and help refine that paint into a beautiful high gloss. We will always use polishes that are filler free and what this means is we don’t use polishes to hide imperfections we only use it to enhance its natural freshly corrected finish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions? Take a look at the FAQ or reach out anytime. If you’re feeling ready, go ahead and apply.
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Getting started is simple. Reach out through our contact form or schedule a call—we’ll walk you through the next steps and answer any questions along the way.
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Wax will not remove any swirls or scratches. Typically wax has fillers that may hide light swirls and scratches temporarily.
Paint Corrections is a process that will remove those imperfections all together. We include a ceramic coatings application afterwards in order to maximize the longevity of that correction with proper maintenance.
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It really depends on the vehicles size and how much correcting is needed. Plan to leave the vehicles 3-5 days
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You can reach us anytime via our contact page or email us at contact@topguardusa.com. We aim to respond quickly—usually within one business day.