Self Healling Paint ?

TTQ B4U

TTQ B4U

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So after I took delivery of my new Red Sport I read up as best I could on the paint and saw that it had Scratch Shield Paint. I couldn't find a whole lot on it other than some basic information from Nissan so given it was in near perfect condition I just used a light polishing pad and Essence to help amp up the gloss and prepare it for a ceramic coating. I thought perhaps it was just a newer clear coat that was more scratch resistant. I mean I've only had the car 2 months and thus it's not been in the wild long.

FFWD to this weekend as I washed and cleaned it up in prep for an a couple coats of Bliss. I've been driving my son to the bus stop given the cold weather and long story short as he gets some of his gear out he has proceeded to some minor scratches and marks on the rear bumper and back passenger side rear quarter panel where he has bumped it with his back pack, etc. Not a huge deal, I know life happens, etc. and I can always buff anything out. I wasn't going to even address these ares until spring.

However, after discussing other things with my service manager earlier today he noted that the scratch shield paint has a self-healing capability that is heat activated. OMG, I began to read up on that and that's exactly what Nissan/Infiniti claim. Could this be true?

So just got back in from the garage and I am still stunned. It works! I took a hair dryer on high and proceeded to warm up the area of the scratches slowly and after about 1 minute of making the surface fairly warm, the scratches began to fade. I absolutely wouldn't have believed it but it worked! I even moved to the front of the car where the top portion above the grill had micro marring in horizontal rows from where I had hit it with the rag as I pressed the gloss black 3M wrap on the chrome when wrapping it. Those are now gone too!

It will definitely be interesting to see how things fair during the hot summer months when the temp. of the paint gets quite hot as it bakes in the sun.

Has anyone here tried this or do you have experience with this on other Nissan's or more specifically the GT-R's as I know they too have scratch shield paints.
 
Mike Phillips said:
Interesting.
Please let us know how this paint polishes if you ever have to polish it. As long as the heat option works sounds good.
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Will do. Again, so far all I've done after taking delivery with 6 miles on it was give a full decontamination and a mild polish with CarPro Essence and a LC White Hybrid Force Pad. I then went over it with more Essence and a CarPro Gloss Pad.

The above mainly just to amp up the gloss and remove any gunk from manufacturing and delivery. Next time I find some swirls or marks I'll try and set up a video camera. I know there's at least another mark or two on there now as I saw them when I applying Gliss. It's been freezing here in Ohio so it's no wonder the are still present. Evidently a heated garage isn't enough so as per Nissan it could take upwards of 1 week to heal completely as that's likely due to the sun and temp.
 
The only way to polish out self heating paint without causing issues is basically wet polishing, where you spritz the panel down and keep it wet to do any real paint correction per say with it due to the heat. I know there was an AMMO NYC podcast where Renny Doyle was saying that was the only way he was able to polish up some of the 09 GTRs that had that self healing paint. The other issue is after a few years, the paint gets rock hard and essentially stops being self healing. At that point you just polish as usual but treat it as harder paint. When it comes to actual compounding, same thing. Wet the panel down, keep the panel you're working on damp to prevent the heat from causing too many issues.
 
WillSports3 said:
The only way to polish out self heating paint without causing issues is basically wet polishing, where you spritz the panel down and keep it wet to do any real paint correction per say with it due to the heat. I know there was an AMMO NYC podcast where Renny Doyle was saying that was the only way he was able to polish up some of the 09 GTRs that had that self healing paint. The other issue is after a few years, the paint gets rock hard and essentially stops being self healing. At that point you just polish as usual but treat it as harder paint. When it comes to actual compounding, same thing. Wet the panel down, keep the panel you're working on damp to prevent the heat from causing too many issues.
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I agree and heard that prior to working on it. It's a Polyrotaxane-based paint. I keep the speed on Essence at 4.5 on my Flex 3401 and ensured it barely got warm. Again, it was a light polishing as there were no real areas of defect. I'm not sure how long it will stay flexible but it's only a 3 yr lease so I'll be good if it last that long. Heck, I'm OCD once things are fully corrected so even 2yrs would be fine :)
 
Well it's great for the first few y ears. For the OP, it's a 3 year lease so it's fine. However let's say the OP bought it and 5 years later, well it won't be so self-healing much anymore. It's interesting because Nissan stopped the self-healing clear for a while and then brought it back. It's like the paint they were testing, the self cleaning paint. I haven't heard anything about that lately.
Edit:
Just looked it up, it looks like the self cleaning paint was just an extra layer of super hydrophobic and oleophobic clearcoat that went on top of the regular clear as opposed to at the factory sprayed clear.
 
Cool that it works!

There is no issue to use ceramic coatings or other lsp on that paint?
 
SWETM said:
Cool that it works! There is no issue to use ceramic coatings or other lsp on that paint?
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Has two coats of McKee's SiO2 and two coats of Gliss and works just fine.
 
Infiniti has had it for some time looks like it may have made it's way to Nissan. Even after the video I had my doubts.

YouTube

YouTube
 
I doubt there will be. You gotta think of self healing paint as essentially super soft elastic paint that won't cure for at least 2 years or so. Anything after that and it starts getting rockhard. The only time LSPs might have a durability issue on the paint is if you apply it over paint with a lot of light scratches and marring, and then put it out in the sun. Then with the reflow of the clearcoat, there will be sections of the clearcoat without any protection on it at a very tiny level. The way this paint works is the clearcoat itself is elastic in nature, as well there are tiny microscopic capsules of clear in the clearcoat itself. When there's marring or a light scratch, the capsules itself will erupt and the elasticity of the clearcoat tension will force the resin into the point of the scratch, conducting "self healing". It won't be perfect when you look at it through a microscope as there will still be a very tiny ridge (depending on level of scratch). Surface marring will probably go away but believe it or not most swirls will not. It's why Nissan stopped putting the self healing clear on the GTRs because they themselves had issues buffing out the panels. Of course overtime, all of these processes stop and you get a very hard clearcoat that is unlike the usual Nissan/Infiniti due to the free floating resins in the clearcoat finally hardening. It's also why you see a lot of swirled out "self healing" cars, whether its a Lexus or an Infiniti.

The reason you cannot let this get hot during polishing is because it's not necesarily a reactive self healing clear, it's a memory based self healing clear which is why it will not self heal 100%. It works based on an elasticity basis, as in the clear rebounds back as long the link inbetween the molecules in the resin have not been severed. So if you let the panel get hot during compounding or anything else, it'll look great until it cools down and you'll have achieved minimal correction essentially. It'll work against you both ways in regards to the elasticity. The only way to actually level the paint is to keep the panel as cool as possible, essentially you don't want any of the self healing features to be active when you polish. Due to the elasticity of the clearcoat, it's also why it's very soft. Realistically, you can probably use M205 or a non-diminishing polishing level liquid along with a cold panel to correct the actual clear.

Essentially, the heat speeds up the process. Heat of course causes molecules to move faster compared to colder temperatures, but that's why in a period of two weeks or so in normal temperatures, small scratches will clear itself up, at least to the human eye. It's an interesting system that still has a lot to be worked out. If I remember right there were even a few TSBs from Nissan for a few Infiniti models that this affected for refinishing where the Dealerships bodyshops were not able to re-spray the clear with the self healing clear and finish it off by sanding and polishing out the sanding marks. A few other issues were the fact that a lot of Infiniti certified bodyshops didn't even have access to the self healing clear and just re-sprayed a panel with a regular clearcoat they use. Like I said it has some issues that need to be worked out.
 
well I washed the car and gave it a complete once over with my halogen aka "the ugly lights" and found just two small areas that needed corrected. I went and got my heat gun on low and within 3 minutes both are now completely gone. this is probably the best and weirdest discovery I've come across and one that makes me very very happy. I went and visited the body shop at the dealer today and they shared with me the white paper write up on it. So long as the clear isn't "cut through" thus breaking the bond internally scratches will heal from the bottom up 100% and that's been the case thus far. None of the four marks that I've corrected with heat are visible even after cooling.
 
TTQ B4U said:
well I washed the car and gave it a complete once over with my halogen aka "the ugly lights" and found just two small areas that needed corrected. I went and got my heat gun on low and within 3 minutes both are now completely gone. this is probably the best and weirdest discovery I've come across and one that makes me very very happy. I went and visited the body shop at the dealer today and they shared with me the white paper write up on it. So long as the clear isn't "cut through" thus breaking the bond internally scratches will heal from the bottom up 100% and that's been the case thus far. None of the four marks that I've corrected with heat are visible even after cooling.
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Thanks for sharing your findings. Cool stuff, definitely.

Side note, I see you posting over on Q50.org. Glad you are enjoying your Infiniti!
 
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