You’ve just dropped between $50,000 and $500,000 on a brand new vehicle. You’ve probably spent countless hours researching your new high-end sports car, luxury sedan, SUV or truck, and you’re thrilled to finally have it in your possession. And because it’s new you’ve got that extra-special warm glow inside, knowing it’s in perfectly pristine condition.
Except it’s not. Because the dirty secret lurking within your brand new vehicle’s paint is a vast array of countless scratches that have been dulling the exterior finish since before it left the factory. This is the ugly-yet-unavoidable reality of automotive production, requiring new vehicles be painted, polished and processed quickly, but not necessarily properly.
And if you think you’re car’s immune to this problem because it’s a high-end, limited production model wearing a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce or other ultra-premium badge, well, you’re wrong. As part of my research for this story I was shown a brand new $200,000 Ferrari California with 80 miles on the odometer. And thousands of scratches in its “brand new” paint.
To address this issue a car needs what’s referred to as a “paint correction” treatment, which is the fine art of delicately removing micro-scratches and swirls through machine polishing (buffing). When done properly, a very fine amount of clear coat is removed, along with the otherwise permanent scratches and swirls in the clear coat. This leaves crystal clarity and pure reflections. When performed by a skilled craftsman, the difference can’t be fully captured in photos. It must be seen in person to believe.
Expect to pay anywhere from $500 to over $2,500, depending on how many stages of paint correction your car needs. Other services, like a complete “wheel off” detailing at Esoteric, costs $300 to $400, but the “before” and “after” transformation can’t be overstated. The inner part of the wheels, previously caked in a decade of brake dust and road tar, now look brand new. Esoteric also “seals” the wheels with semi-permanent coatings after they’re clean to make the removal of future brake dust and road debris much easier.
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