Paint Prepping Aztec NM

Paint preparation is more difficult and complicated than it was a couple decades ago. To keep your shop as productive and profitable as possible, keep yourself up to date on the latest paint products.

By Michael Regan
6/1/2000

The process of paint preparation has come a long way in the last 20 years. Before urethanes and basecoat/clearcoat refinishing systems became so popular, very few shops did much more than feather, prime and paint.

Today, it's unusual to find a shop that doesn't approach the preparation process with a clear understanding that the vehicle is leaving with a lifetime performance guarantee on the paintwork. This extensive guarantee, combined with refinements at the manufacturer level, has substantially raised the level of refinishing quality. Also consider that shops benefit from increased consumer satisfaction, which has become an important statistic affecting relationships with insurers.

All of this has occurred while the government has steadily increased the amount of regulations for the entire coatings industry. As a result, there's been an ongoing scramble by paint company chemists to offer high-quality products that are compliant with current and pending legislation.

I think most of us would agree that we've never had products available that perform as well as they do now. For this article, we'll specifically examine state-of-the-art preparation products and the best practices that accompany them.

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