Car Wash Offers Color Sanding

[JP4RNR]

I saw that one of the services that my local car wash offers is color sanding at $45 per panel. Usually color sanding as I have known it is the final preparation step to get rid of some orange peel after a vehicle has been painted.

Not knowing how thick the OEM paint job is applied to most vehicles I wonder why the car wash would offer such a service. It seems like a risky proposition because if they sand to deep I imagine that they are liable for repainting the affected and blending in adjacement panels.

What are your thoughts. Would color sanding improve the finish look or am I asking for trouble?

 

[rook]

I saw that one of the services that my local car wash offers is color sanding at $45 per panel. Usually color sanding as I have known it is the final preparation step to get rid of some orange peel after a vehicle has been painted.

Not knowing how thick the OEM paint job is applied to most vehicles I wonder why the car wash would offer such a service. It seems like a risky proposition because if they sand to deep I imagine that they are liable for repainting the affected and blending in adjacement panels.

What are your thoughts. Would color sanding improve the finish look or am I asking for trouble?

You're exactly right. It's an old term from the old days of laquer paint, where sanding would make the newly painted panel look like the adjacent panels. The sandpaper would smooth the texture of the paint, and after polishing, the result would be a color match.

Todays paints cannot be "color sanded" because of the layer of clear urethane that lies on top of the basecoat color. You should never sand and polish an oem finish unless you are prepared to refinish the panel. Quite simply, you'd be removing too much material. In their never ending pursuit to build cheaper, and reduce volatile emissions, manufacturers are using thinner layers of clearcoat as technology (application and paint) allows.

I'd be interested to learn what the car wash means when they use the color sanding term. I'd assume they abrade with ultra fine sandpaper, like 3000 grit and follow it up with a buffer. Although the amount of clear that would be removed would be minimal, why bother when a clay bar followed by a good buff with a high quality product, will produce the same results.