While modern car paint is generally designed to be durable, this is not always the case in practice. It’s constantly being attacked by harsh weather, the scorching sun, bird droppings, insect impacts, and many other environmental attacks. This is why it so imperative to protect your car’s paint when it is brand new, whether it is on the backend of a new paint job from a body shop or straight from the factory.
Applying Permagard On The Backend Of A New Paint Job
One of the best times to apply Permagard is on the backend of a new paint job from a body shop. Body shops are constantly repainting vehicles due to damage, accidents, and old unsalvageable paint. This is where Permagard can be perfectly implemented into the business during this process. Because of Permagard’s ease of application, no requirement for a controlled environment, and no downtime, body shop technicians can quickly install Permagard on vehicles that have just been repainted.
This not only protects the brand new paint job that the body shop technicians carried out but also adds a new sense of value for vehicle owners to remind them to protect their valuable painted surfaces. Full windows-out repaints aren’t cheap and can sometimes take months to be completed. With Permagard, body shop customers can prevent another full repaint in the future.
In fact, this is exactly what our good friend, Oscar Cardenas, accomplished recently on two repainted vehicles in his body shop. Straight out of fresh windows-out repaints, he and his team applied the Permagard coating to two beautiful Porsches. No need for a dust-free paint booth, no aggressive paint correction on brand new paint, and no additional downtime. All they needed was a dual-action polisher and the Permagard coating. It is for these very reasons that Permagard is the perfect paint protection system for body shops.
Another excellent benefit of Permagard is the lack of requirement for paint correction. Competitive products require you to compound (paint correct) even brand new painted surfaces to apply their products. But with Permagard, that is simply not necessary. One of Permagard’s biggest trademarks is about protecting as much paint thickness as possible.
The first few microns of new paint are the most important to protect. Therefore with Permagard, when you apply it on the backend of a new paint job, you’re protecting the most valuable layers of the new painted finish. This not only protects the vehicle’s maximum paint thickness but also provides a much deeper and richer depth of shine and gloss as well.
Modern OEM Clear Coats – Why They Are Too Soft
Modern OEM clear coats are applied much thinner than older OEM clear coats. In the past, clear coats were often applied at 2–3 mils thickness (50–75 microns). Today, many clear coats are applied as light as 1.5–2 mils thickness (35–50 microns).
Here are some contributing factors that have affected this change:
- Internal pressures to reduce costs
- Reducing material waste to improve environmental stability
- Lightening overall vehicle weight where every gram counts at scale
However, modern OEM clear coats have been formulated to be more flexible and elastic to accommodate a larger variety of materials.
This includes:
- Modern unibody construction that flexes more effectively compared to older rigid chassis
- Plastic and other composite body panels that expand and contract differently than steel
- Better impact and paint chipping resistance due to increased flexibility
But this flexibility comes at the cost of decreased hardness, meaning these modern clear coats scratch and leave swirl marks more easily. In the past, older lacquer paints and enamel paints were generally harder but more brittle. However, stricter VOC regulations have forced paint manufacturers to modify their products’ chemistry. Some of the older solvent-based systems and hardeners that produced very tough, dense clear coats are no longer permitted or have been completely reformulated. The replacement chemistries, while still effective, don’t always match the sheer film hardness and thickness of older paint systems.
In fact, some premium OEM clear coats today are intentionally made with softer polymer compounds that allow minor scratches to “heal” with heat. This sounds great on paper, but it means that the painted surfaces are inherently less resistant to the appearance of marring, especially for darker colored paints. Modern OEM clear coats contain more UV absorbers and “HALS” (hindered amine light stabilizers) to protect the underlying waterborne base coat, which is more UV-sensitive than older solvent-based coats. This is viable for color retention, but the formulation space used for UV protection is somewhat competing with mechanical durability.
| Era | Character |
| Pre-1980s (lacquer/enamel) | Hard, thick, and brittle — chips badly but polishes beautifully |
| 1980s–1990s clear coats | Relatively thick and hard — improved durability but less flexible |
| Modern clear coats | Thinner, softer, and improved flexibility — Resists cracking and fading but prone to micro-scratches, swirl marks, and other surface imperfections |
So, while older paints are generally considered to be tougher and offer better scratch and swirl resistance, modern clear coats are an improvement in other ways such as UV protection, color retention, and impact flexibility. Therefore, it’s essentially a set of chemical engineering trade-offs driven by cost, regulation, and changing performance priorities.
Protecting Your Factory-Painted Finish
Many brand new vehicles tend to be delivered to customers in rough shape from storage at the dealership. Micro-scratches and swirl marks, in particular, are a huge issue for vehicles with brand new paint. However, when you apply the Permagard coating to painted surfaces, it actually fills in micro-scratches and removes swirl marks to improve the paint’s optical clarity.
This is a benefit that can only be achieved by the Permagard coating and not competitive products. This is due to our competitors’ products requiring paint correction, regardless of the age of the paint, in order to apply them.
Our competitors’ products magnify micro-scratches and surface imperfections, rather than filling them in and creating better paint clarity. This is one of the reasons why paint correction is a requirement for their products.
Applying Permagard is simply the better option overall for brand new factory-painted finishes. You protect the first few layers of the valuable clear coat, rather than removing them, and bring out a much deeper depth of gloss and shine.
Once applied, Permagard will protect your brand new factory-painted surfaces for many years to come, provided proper maintenance is carried out.
Permagard Automotive – The Best Choice For Body Shops
Permagard provides the best application versatility for body shop paint jobs and newly delivered vehicles alike. Whether it’s a beautiful Porsche receiving a full windows-out repaint at a body shop or another Porsche being newly delivered to the customer, Permagard can fully protect both of these vehicles’ maximum paint thickness to provide, not only the best protection standards, but also the richest depth of gloss and shine.
Permagard Automotive can protect up to 100% of your vehicle’s maximum paint thickness. Due to our competitors’ requirement for paint correction, they will never be able to achieve this feat. Permagard Automotive durably protects your vehicle’s painted surfaces from many environmental attacks such as UV radiation, acid rain, bird droppings, insect impacts, road salt, snow, or sand, among numerous others.
Permagard Automotive also provides a signature “wet-look” effect that cannot be replicated by competitive products to bring out your paint’s rich depth of gloss and shine and dramatically increase its color contrasts. Increased paint slickness for a touch as smooth as satin? Permagard Automotive provides that as well.
If you would like to learn more about Permagard Automotive being applied on the backend of body shop paint jobs or newly delivered factory-painted vehicles, contact our Permagard Headquarters office today at (305) 662-5070 or email us at info@permagard.com for more information.
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