Paint Correction, Swirls, Scratches, Gone
Paint correction is a multi-stage machine polish that removes defects inside your clear coat, swirls, wash marring, scratches, oxidation and water spots, instead of hiding them under a glaze. It restores true gloss and clarity to the paint and gets it to the condition it needs to be in before ceramic coating.
It's for owners of used cars with tired paint, black or dark cars that show every mark, and anyone booking a ceramic coating who wants the paint locked in at its best.
Most "scratches" on a car aren't scratches, they're swirl marks and wash marring caused by rough sponges, dirty microfibres and automatic car washes dragging grit across the clear coat. Under bright light they look like fine cobwebs radiating out from the reflection. They kill gloss, make dark colours look grey, and can't be washed off. The only way to remove them is to machine-polish a thin layer of the clear coat away so the paint underneath reflects cleanly again.
We start with a full decontamination wash so we're never polishing over grit. Then we measure paint thickness at multiple points on every panel with a digital gauge, that tells us how much clear coat we're working with and where we can and can't be aggressive. We assess the defects under a strong LED and pick the right combination of pad, compound and polisher for your paint's hardness. Different manufacturers use very different paint; a BMW clear coat behaves nothing like a Mazda.
A single-stage correction uses one polish to clean up light swirls and restore gloss. A two-stage correction uses a compound first to cut deeper defects out, then a finishing polish to bring gloss back and remove any micro-marring from the compound pass. A three-stage adds a heavy cut pass for paint that's genuinely rough, deep swirls, buffer trails from a previous bad detail, wet-sanded areas.
Between passes we wipe the paint down with an isopropyl solution to strip out polish oils so we can see the true corrected finish, not a filled-in one. When we're done, the paint is inspected under the same LED, photographed, and either handed back or protected, either with a sealant (for a few months of protection) or as prep for a ceramic coating.
You get an honest assessment before we start, including what will and won't come out, a written record of paint thickness readings, and paint that looks visibly deeper, wetter and more reflective than it did when the car arrived.
We come to you in Canberra
Imperium Detailing is a fully mobile service. We bring the gear, the product and the manpower, you just need to make sure a couple of basics are ready when we arrive.
- Access to water, an outdoor tap we can hook a hose to.
- Access to power, a standard 240V power point within reach.
- Enclosed garage or covered workspace, required for this service. Correction and coating work has to be done out of direct sun, wind, dust and rain so the finish cures properly. No garage on-site? Give us a call and we'll sort an alternative.
Common questions
How do I know if my car needs 1-stage, 2-stage or 3-stage correction?+
We inspect the paint under strong LED and a paint depth gauge before we quote. Light swirls and holograms usually clear with a single-stage polish. Deeper wash marring, buffer trails or scratches you can catch with a fingernail edge need a 2 or 3-stage, compound to cut the defect out, then a finishing polish to restore gloss. We only recommend what your paint actually needs.
Will paint correction remove every scratch?+
No, and any detailer promising that isn't being straight with you. Correction removes defects within the clear coat, swirls, wash marring, water spots, oxidation, most light scratches. Scratches that have cut through the clear into the base coat need touch-up paint, not polishing. We'll show you what will and won't come out before we start.
Does correction damage the paint?+
Not when it's done properly. We measure paint thickness before and after each pass with a digital gauge, use the least aggressive combination of pad and compound that will work, and stop well before we'd risk the clear coat. Modern paints have around 100 microns of clear coat; a full correction typically removes 2–5 microns. Skilled correction is safe for the life of the car.
Book your detail.
Tell us about your vehicle and we'll come back with availability and a fixed quote, usually within a few hours.