How To Extend The Life of Your Vehicles Paint!
It's no secret a decent paint job in today's economy can cause upwards of $3000 or more. Paint material itself has had pretty big increases along with our gas and groceries. Heck even buying a used car is getting pretty expensive. Protecting your car's paint is so important to be able to uphold the resale value of your prized possession. Wouldn't it be nice to receive top dollar when selling your car just because you were able to keep the paint nice and sparkly? Today's article will help you do just that, so please read along to get the 4 most important tips for keeping your paint in check.
Tip 1: GET YOUR CAR WASHED FREQUENTLEY!
We all have busy schedules I understand, and as I write this optimistically telling you to try and get a car wash every week, I know realistically that is just not possible. I remember with my first car I would wash it twice a week. And once a month I would go to a professional hand wash car wash.
DO NOT USE the quick drive thru machines unless you know they have cleaned the drying cloths and the wash brushes. Those scream swirl marks all day long. Car after car, the brushes get filled with more and more dirt, Each car there after is getting more and more swirls. If you can, try to use only hand wash car washes, if your are a DIY type of person, you probably already knew this of carwashes.
To the DIY people, all I recommend is you are using clean sponges, and towels. Also for obvious reasons, please use the correct type of soap. Countless times have I seen people accidently use a soap with bleach or other harsh chemicals that eat away at the cars paint, then they grab a dirty cloth they had lying around to spread the soap. When they finish the wash down they notice the paint is a lot tougher and sometimes even completely taken the clear coat off.
Why is a car wash important?
Well the longer the dirt sits, the harder it becomes to remove. Acidic droppings such as bird poop and dirty water can leave marks that would required professional attention to fix. Avoid that by getting your car washed as often as you can. :)
Tip 2: Paint Protection!
Paint protection is not just industry jargon to sell to our customers, it is real and it has it's value. Now I'm not going to tell you every product works wonders, because even though I work in the industry I myself struggle to products that really hold to what they advertise and they don't sell garbage, I won't name them. However there is a wide variety of paint protection products available. Some as easy as being a spray on wax and others being as in depth as having a professional detailer take your car for 72 hours to provide a solid Ceramic coating to it.
Waxes in general can provide protection from one week to six months and are usually an affordable quick option for you to protect the paint.
But Abraham, I'm looking for more than that, what options do I have?
CERAMIC COATING. Not to be confused with the "ceramic properties" waxes out there a true Ceramic coating can hold protection of up to 5 years! A brand named IGL has some exclusive coatings that are only sold to professional detailers, and the price of entry even for them does not come cheap.
If you have the funds for it, ($800-$2000) a detailer can provide a 3 step polish and give true paint correction, removing swirls, light scratches, hell even orange peel if you wanted, then lay on these amazing products. The process itself takes a full 72 hours to coat the car, the finish is unmatched, Every car I've seen with ceramic coating, the dust just falls off the car by itself, and the water beating properties are amazing as well.
If this sound like something you'd interested in go ahead and give me a call. I don't do it, but I can recommend the best installer in the south bay. (Allbyhand)
Tip 3: Avoid Sun Exposure!
For obvious reasons, the sunlight cause the paint to start baking, too much baking will cause the clear coat ( the shiny layer of protective paint over the base color) to start peeling away. Once the clear starts peeling its time for a visit, REPAINT! So if there are shady parking spots a little further take them. If you can garage your car, please do. If you park out on the street, an investment of a car cover may be a good idea.
Tip 4: Repairing Dents And Scratches ASAP!
You had to have known this was coming right? After all we are a body shop. Jokes aside people tell me all the time, "oh its just a scratch I can live with it." or "you can't see the dent unless you really look for it." The problem with these little terrors , are that deep scratches or dents with paint chips are opening the surface to the bare metal. When bare metal is exposed to moisture it oxidizes. That then leads to rust. Rust problems can get really big really fast, and in most cases fixing a small dent or scratch would have been much cheaper than replacing a part. So to keep that baby rust free just ask me for a quote on our homepage and I can inspect that for you.
If you've read this far I want to take the time to truly thank you for your time. I am not a writer by any means, simply a man truly invested in keeping my customers happy and providing value to them even after our service has completed. Thank you again and feel free to send me a text on any questions or comments you may have regarding this article or anything body shop related. Thank you, and farewell! - Abraham Orozco