There's nothing wrong with making generalizations but what really matters is when you push away from the keyboard and go out into your garage and do some testing.
I covered this topic in my e-book, there is no cut and dry answer and this topic comes up often enough that it's kind of a "warm" topic, not quite a "hot" topic.
There's all kinds of variables that have to do with paint hardness or softness, I've been told that in Asian countries they don't have as strict of rules, regulations, or laws on pollution and v.o.c. emissions and this enables them to shoot paints that cost less and the characteristic that "we" see is the paint is softer and easier to remove defects out of.
European countries and America have stricter rules, regulations and/or laws on pollution and emissions and the results "we" see when it comes to going out into your garage and working on your car is harder paints.
Now the above is just a one set of factors that affect paint hardness, I'm sure their are others but this is what I've been told by a number of colleagues in the paint side of the industry.
Guess what?
Things change.
- Paint or resin technology changes
- Method of application changes
- Total norms for manufacturing change
Things change so fast that what's true today for paint hardness or softness will be different in just months from now. So generalizations work, for example most people that have worked on a number of new Corvettes will agree the clear paint used is typically on the hard side.
Even if you have a general idea as to whether the make and model of vehicle you're buffing on has hard or soft paint, nothing beats doing some testing and dialing in a system approach that works GREAT to one small area and then once you've proven your system approach, simply duplicate this process over the rest of the car.
Assuming the same paint is on all body panels you should get similar results as long as you use the same products, process and technique throughout the project.
