Paint Correction or Paintless Clearcoat Repair, What's the Difference?

MARS gets a lot of questions about repairing and restoring vehicle surface damage. We have a variety of services including our paint correction and clearcoat repair to fix vehicles with this type of damage but we wanted to answer the most common questions we receive. Devon Davidson, owner of MARS of Billings, tackles these most common questions!

How can a person tell if they have a vehicle that's a good candidate for either paint correction or paintless clearcoat repair?

The way you can tell that you're in the market for a paint correction or a paintless clearcoat repair is just by looking at your paint and seeing:

• car wash scratches
• haze in the paint surface
• dull and not glossy anymore
• damage from a previous detail
• "Montana pinstripes" visible scratches in the sides of your vehicle from hunting and camping

Why should I fix this damage? What are any benefits to this?

You obviously want to preserve your vehicle's finish and that's what we do here at MARS. Either service is going to preserve your vehicle's finish to make it beautiful and flawless. A good reason to look at either service is to maintain or increase your vehicle's resale value. If you're looking at selling your vehicle, generally, you're increasing the value by removing all of the damage. It really depends on how severe the damage is but we can get your vehicle looking near new. Either way, we're going to make them look better than before without going to the body shop for an expensive paint job.

What exactly is paint correction?

Paint correction has definitely been a buzzword in the automotive industry for some time. Before paint correction, it was basically wet sand buffing with big rotary buffers going around vehicles. While trying to bring back the shine, this was also creating other damage.

At MARS, our technicians are professionally trained using a variety of orbital machines from Rupes which is a great company with great products and tools. Depending on the severity of the damage we're moving around the vehicle once, twice, or more with different pads, different compounds and polishes to get that finish back to the way it should be.

The scratches are typically lying in the clearcoat and that's the challenge in our industry is that the clearcoat on vehicles is becoming less. So, we're measuring the clearcoat layer to know how much we have to work with and essentially massaging the scratches out of this layer to bring back the shine.

Learn More about Paint Correction

What exactly is paintless clearcoat repair (PCR)?

We can't talk about paintless clearcoat repair without bringing up RestorFX. RestorFX is a company that's been around a long time and they've mastered the paintless clearcoat repair in our industry. So, we can take vehicles, boats, and even semis that have pretty severe scratches and we don't have to buff on that vehicle. We're not going to do any paint correction at all. Instead, we're going to do more sanding with different products while applying a two-part patented clearcoat from RestorFX. So instead of paint correction, where you really are removing some clearcoat, we're adding clearcoat, giving the customer potentially a longer longer lasting product.

MARS of Billings is a partner with RestorFX and we are their only partner in the Billings community and surrounding areas. We brought this product in, we believe in it, and we partnered with them to be exclusive here in this market.

Learn More about Paintless Clearcoat Repair

What is the main difference between these two services?

With paint correction, we are working with the existing clearcoat . And, to that point, we are diminishing it a little bit to repair the surface. This is why we measure the clearcoat to make sure we don't go too far. That's the problem with any kind of buffing on the current clearcoat. If you don't know what you got to work with, you could buzz through it and now you have a paint job on your hand. So, paint correction is working with what you have to massage and make those scratches diminish or go away.

Where RestorFX is different is we're adding an additional layer of clearcoat. It's a two-part process applied by our trained staff that provides a new layer of clearcoat to cover up the damage that was there. It's a permanent product that is not going to wash off.

Applying RestorFX to a vehicle's finish is adding an extra layer of clearcoat that bonds to the factory clearcoat. When we're prepping a panel or the whole car for RestorFX, we use a chemical product that opens up the pores of the old clearcoat for RestorFX's two-part process to bond chemically and attach permanently to the vehicle's surface.

What about maintenance on either of these services?

With both of these services, you can maintain it like you would with any new vehicle. You can use maintenance products and silica sprays. You definitely don't want to use paste wax anymore but you're going to want to go through touchless car wash. Even though the brushes on traditional car washes keep getting better, if the person ahead of you went through with their vehicle that's full of mud, you're gonna just gonna get the results of that on your car.

For RestorFX, you're going to want to maintain it like it's got a fresh paint job on it. It's going to be cured in eight hours when it's applied to go out in the elements. But, we recommend waiting two weeks before you wash your car, and there again touches washes or a nice quality hand wash is recommended.

With both of these services, you can apply ceramic coatings to help protect the finish. Or, you can put paint protection film on it to protect from future rock chips. RestorFX is a permanent product so you can put these other products to protect your investment which is also a great part of it.

Which of these services do you recommend?

There is vehicle damage that paint correction is better for than RestorFX and vice versa. But, your best bet would be to just stop by our shop at 2904 Gable Road. Let us come out with our technicians and look at your paint damage. We'll assess which process is better whether it's paint correction or paintless clearcoat repair. We'll get you prices based on each and talk to you about why we're recommending one over the other. We prefer to educate you on what we know to be the best for your car.

There's no cost to you for our evaluation and we are available by appointment or if you simply want to stop by. We're here to help you no matter what time of the year it is. But, we can help undo the damage to your vehicle and make it a vehicle that you're proud to own.