Cadillac XLR, how hard is the paint?
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Nick McKees37
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- Jan 6, 2011
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The XLR was made in the same Bowling Green Kentucky plant that the Corvette is, so I'd imagine the paint is hard.
But as we always say, do a test spot first. :dblthumb2:
shoeless89
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Thats not TOO far from me :xyxthumbs:
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Setec Astronomy
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- Aug 31, 2010
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Caddy paint is hard, but as Nick said, I'd expect an XLR to be Corvette-hard. Although the XLR is metal, isn't it? Perhaps then it's just Cadillac paint, which as I said, is still hard.
Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
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What year is it?
I'm not a jump on the bandwagon, love all new cars kind of guy as most new cars loose their newness appeal after only a few years but the 2004 to 2009 Cadillac XLR was one of the better looking body styles to come out in the recent past. Definitely worth a double take and in my book it's a SIV or Special Interest Vehicle.
Like others have said, expect it to be on the hard side but definitely do a test spot and use the least aggressive products to get the job done...
How To Do a Test Spot
(and why it's so important)
"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"
I have black Cadillac CTS coming up for a Thursday Night Live Broadcast, should be a couple of weeks. Not as cool as the XLR but still pretty cool.
LuxuryMobile
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- Feb 12, 2009
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I thought the paint was hard but not the hardest I have seen.
Here is a write up for one that I did, may help you some.
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...illac-xlr-paint-correction-picture-heavy.html
Here is a write up for one that I did, may help you some.
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...illac-xlr-paint-correction-picture-heavy.html
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- #8
- Thread starter
- #9
What year is it?
I'm not a jump on the bandwagon, love all new cars kind of guy as most new cars loose their newness appeal after only a few years but the 2004 to 2009 Cadillac XLR was one of the better looking body styles to come out in the recent past. Definitely worth a double take and in my book it's a SIV or Special Interest Vehicle.
Like others have said, expect it to be on the hard side but definitely do a test spot and use the least aggressive products to get the job done...
How To Do a Test Spot
(and why it's so important)
"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"
I have black Cadillac CTS coming up for a Thursday Night Live Broadcast, should be a couple of weeks. Not as cool as the XLR but still pretty cool.
It's a 2006
Shortspark
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Speaking of "soft" and "hard" paint, what are they exactly? The reason I ask is that I recently bought a new Mercedes ML350 with the "Diamond" White paint option, which costs an additional $1500. I read somewhere that it is special German paint and is multi-coated, ie, I think it is layered five times but I could be wrong. I also heard it is "hard" paint but I don't really know what that means. Do I care for it differently than "soft" paint (which I also am not sure of what "soft" paint is)? The Mercedes look absolutely beautiful after I clayed (not really needed but I did it anyway) and then applied Duragloss 601/105 topped with AquaWax. I can't ask for better but I wondering what benefits, if any, a "hard" paint has and if I have to care for it in a special way.
Mike Phillips
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Very cool.
One of the very few "new" cars I would ever want to own to enjoy.
Looking forward to your write-up...
:xyxthumbs:
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Yeah I plan on taking lots of pics and maybe some video as I go. I will have the car over the weekend of August the 4th as they are in the Phillipines so I can take my time and really put extra effort and time into it.
He said I could use any 50/50 pics, before and afters for advertising or just material to show possible new clients.
Klasse Act
Well-known member
- Feb 21, 2012
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The XLR is a very cool ride indeed, especially the "V" version, blown Northstar w/ 459 hp! and is also the first Caddy to sticker for over $100k and is now surely one of the best 'bangs for the bucks" out there, too bad they didn't come with a stick but considering the clients, it makes perfect sense......good thing they saw things differently on the CTS-V's, good job Caddy!
Looking forward to the pics for sure and I really like that cranberry color they had for em' too!!
Looking forward to the pics for sure and I really like that cranberry color they had for em' too!!
The diamond is likely referring the the pearl or flake in the paint, not the hardness of it.
The posters are referring to how difficult 'hard' paint is to correct, but caring for hard paint should be, if anything, easier.
Shortspark
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Thanks. That's what I was hoping!
Mike Phillips
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Generically, hard or soft when referring to paint refers to the hardness or the softness of the paint itself.
The way I explain it goes like this,
Modern clear coats tend to be harder than traditional single stage paints, what this means to you and I is that when we go out into our garage to work on our cars removing below surface defects out of a modern clear coat will tend to be more difficult than if we were working on a old school single stage lacquer or enamel.
I also discuss it in detail under the below heading on my article list,
Articles on Car Paint
This covers it really well...
The practical differences between single stage paints and a clear coat paints
I touch on it in this article too under,
Dual Action Polishers
The Free Floating Spindle Assembly - The Story Behind The Story...
One exception to clear coat versus single stage hardness is single stage white paint which I cover in this article,
The Lesson White Paint Teaches Us
Here's an excerpt...
Mike Phillips [B said:Single-stage White Paint Is Hard[/B]
Generally speaking, single-stage, white paint is the hardest paint you will ever work on. By that I mean, the paint itself, (its physical make-up), is very hard. There are numerous factors that determine the hardness of paint; in the case of white paint, Titanium Dioxide Powder is used as the pigmentation, which is a very hard material in and of itself.
In order to remove a defect that is in the paint, for example a scratch, you must remove all of the paint surrounding the scratch until the surface is level with the lowest depth of the scratch. You could look at removing below surface defects as a leveling process. The problem with removing below surface defects in single-stage white paint is two-fold: Single-stage white paint is hard and automotive paints tend to be very thin.
Quote:
Horizontal View of a Paint Scratch To remove a scratch the surrounding paint must be reduced to the depth of the scratch. Removal of the paint around the scratch removes the scratch and restores the appearance of the paint finish.
Workable Paint is a Blessing
If a paint finish is too hard it may not be workable. A workable paint finish makes scratch and blemish repair easy. Hard paints, like single-stage white paints, are not very workable. Soft paints like single-stage, black paints are noticeably more workable and it's easy to remove swirls and scratches out of them.
Workable means you can remove small particles of paint easily using some sort of abrading process. Hard paints, like single stage white paints, are so hard that when you abrade them with the intention of removing a scratch, (i.e. removing small particles of paint), you often end up putting in more, smaller scratches surrounding the scratch while potentially only marginally removing the original scratch itself. The process becomes self-defeating and in some cases dangerous in that you risk going through to the primer.
The hardness of paint determines what you can or cannot do when it comes to removing defects. This is especially true in the context of working on paint using only your hands.
When dealing with single-stage white paint, it is almost impossible to remove defects by hand or machine which are below the surface. Below surface defects can include:
- Rotary Buffer Swirls also called Holograms or Buffer Trails. These types of swirls are instilled by the aggressive pads and abrasive products via the direct drive rotating action of the rotary buffer.
- Cobweb-Effect - Random scratches distributed throughout the finish that appear in a circular pattern when a single point of light is focused and viewed on a panel.
- RIDS - Random, Isolated Deep Scratches. RIDS are caused by normal wear and tear to the car’s finish in the normal course of day-in and day-out use. RIDS show up after a neglected finish is either machine cleaned or hand cleaned using a compound or swirl mark remover and the majority of light or shallow swirls and scratches are removed exposing only the remaining deeper scratches, which will now show up like as Sore Thumb. These remaining deeper scratches are refereed to as RIDS.
- Tracers - Straight-line scratches instilled during wet-sanding by hand. Tracers are actually deeper scratches left in the paint after the majority of sanding marks are removed via compounding with a rotary buffer. Usually Tracers are instilled when some type of abrasive particulate is trapped between the surface of the paint and the sandpaper and ground into the paint leaving a deeper scratch than what the abrasives on the paper are leaving in the paint. Thus after the uniform sanding marks are removed, the deeper scratches or Tracers are left behind and like RIDS stand out like a Sore Thumb.
- Acid and Alkaline rain/water spots that have etched into the finish. There are 3 different types of water spots, Type I, Type II and Type III, Acid and Alkaline water spots are Type II and this means they are actually etching below the surface and the only way to remove these types of water spots is to abrade the surface and level the surface with the lowest depth of the water spots or etching.
- Industrial pollution and chemical fallout that has settled onto and etched into the finish. These are kind of like a Type II Water Spot except they may not look like round spots but instead randomly shaped mottled etchings.
Simply put, a below surface defect is any damage where paint is missing due to abrasion or chemical attack. The reason it is difficult to repair below surface defects in white paint is because you must remove the paint surrounding the scratch to feather it in to the surrounding area. This means you must remove portions of the paint without causing further damage.
- Bird droppings that have etched into the finish. Bird Droppings contain Uric Acid and if not removed quickly the paint will be eaten away and a below surface etching will be the result.
Removing below surface defects requires controlled paint removal. This is where it becomes difficult. Removing small particles of paint using controlled and measured products and procedures on a soft paint is easy because they are easy to abrade. By controlled products and procedures, I am referring to compounds, paint cleaners, and cleaner/polishes that rely on diminishing abrasives, buffered, or cushioned in a rich, lubricating oil film. Even when you resort to using an aggressive compound, (by hand or machine), you risk, removing so much film-build (paint) that you expose the primer below the top coat and creating finer scratches surrounding the defect in your removal process.
The Mohs Scale of Hardness
In 1822, an Austrian scientist by the name of Fredrick Mohs created a scale from 1 to 10, for measuring and determining hardness. Hardness refers to the measure of resistance a surfaces has to abrasion. Talc is rated at 1 while a diamond is rated at 10.
Titanium dioxide, the substance used as pigmentation in white paint, is rated at 7 on the Mohs scale. As far as pigments go, titanium dioxide is very hard. By contrast, black paints, (single-stage), are soft. The pigment used to make paint black is Carbon black, which has a Mohs hardness rating of 2.
While some will argue the Mohs Hardness Scale isn't the best way to explain paint hardness, in this example I'm only using it as an indicator of the hardness of different substances used as pigments or colorants used in automotive paints and when it comes to a single stage paint the type of pigment used WILL effect the hardness or softness of the resin/paint and this will affect how easy or hard it is for someone to work on the paint.
And I have 3-4 articles on paint hardness and paint workability on MeguiarsOnline.com in the Hot Topics forum group.
Mike Phillips
Active member
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Let's hope...
Exactly.
Here's another related article since we're talking about Mercedes-Benz.
Ceramiclear Paints - Be Careful
Old Tiger
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- Oct 27, 2009
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Nick you are dead on! The XLR Clear is Corvette hard! IME, the MF cutting pads do great as do the HydroTech pads work exceptionally well!
Old Tiger
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- Oct 27, 2009
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It is poly with an aluminum roof!