How swirl resistant is Toyota paint?

Calendyr,

I'm not a technical person. I'm a buyer, and even a that, I only back up the raw material buyer. So I am no expert. But it is my believe that pigment of any color likely offers little in regard paint hardness. I believe it is the base (the combinations of resins, etc.) that give paint it's hardness. You may be right that relative to other pigments, white is harder - I'm not sure about that. But let me get into work tomorrow and ask a smarter person than me, and I'll pass on what I learn.
 
briarpatch said:
We have two Toyotas....a 2008 Sequoia and a 2013 Tundra.....the clear is significantly harder on the Sequoia than the tundra. I swear sometimes I can put swirls on the tundra by looking at it the wrong way
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My Black 2007 Tundra and my wifes 2013 Metallic Black Avalon are the same way. I hate to touch them with anything but a stream of water.
 
So - I checked with one of our technical guys here. He works directly with paint manufacturers (including auto paint manufacturers who sell both EOM and aftermarket system), and I was mostly correct.

Although TiO2 is marginally harder than any other pigment, the difference would never be discernible in a two stage paint system, as it is the clear coat that really provides the "hardness" to paint. I asked him to clarify by explaining that on this forum, "hardness" would likely be defined as how difficult it is to abrade the paint using polish with abrasives. He maintained the same position.

In a single stage paint system, or in an instance where the clear coat has been compromised, there could be a very small difference in the "polishability" of paints of different colors, but even at that, as I mentioned last night, it would be the base, consisting of resins and other fillers, that will really make the "hardness" of the paint different.

He did believe that it is not uncommon for paint from the same manufacturer, and for the same brand and model of car, to be of different hardness, color dependent, but that is more the cause of the ability of different pigments to interact with their base system, requiring adjustments to the composition of the base. As an example, any paint for which the pigment is iron oxide based will almost certainly have a slightly increased percentage of resin in order to make the opacity of the paint consistent.

Lastly, white paint will certainly provide more U.V. protection than any other color.

The guy I asked was quite impressed that a discussion like this might happen on a detailer's forum. His impression is that detailers just wash and wax cars, and treat all cars as if they are all the same. I spent almost as much time explaining the "science" that I have learned on the forum as he did explaining the "science" of pigment.
 
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Great info. The variation in hardness of different colors from the same manufacturer has been discussed here. This explains it. And glad you brought up the UV advantage of white. It just doesn't absorb UV in general. I'm a white car guy... not for that reason but because for me the pain of swirls > the benefit of the depth of a clean dark car.

I love this forum.


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Thank you for taking the time to verify this. I cannot recall where I got the information about paint hardness when I learned detailing a few years ago but it looks like I need to remove the notion that white paint is harder from my knowledge bank ;)

I had not thought about UV protection in relation to paint color but it makes a lot of sense that white paint would be more UV resistant since it's reflecting most of the color spectrum. And this also explains why black car tends to have a lot more clearcoat failure than light colored cars.

Very interesting stuff, thank you again!
 
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