PAINT CONDITION CAN TELL YOU A LOT ABOUT A USED CAR
- Ahmad
- Aug 14, 2017
- 2 min read
There are a few things that affect a car’s resale value. Some are crucial such as drivetrain health, chassis condition, and overall wear and tear. Other things such as body and paint condition are seen as not very important because they are cosmetic, but they could be signs of bigger problems beneath the skin.
A car’s body and paint is the first layer of a car, which means that anything affecting the exterior can also have an impact on what is under the body panels. This also gives you an idea of how much care was put into maintaining the car.
First off the average thickness of a car’s original factory paint system, from the primer, all the way to the clear coat, falls between 3.5 millimeters and 4.5 millimeters. Anything higher than that means the car has been repainted, as garages are never able to match the precision of factory paint.
Measurements that are in the high double digits and more means that particular body panel was fixed and body filler was used. Body filler is utilized as a quick fix option rather than properly straightening and remolding the damaged body panel.
Whenever body filler is used, it means the car was involved in an accident and the job was done in haste and on the cheap, with little to no care put into restoring the body shape. These are cars that you should stay clear of because body damage affects what is under the skin, and it little care was put into restoring the body, you can only imagine what kind of damage is hiding underneath.
Cars that have a few scratches here and there are not a big issue because minor scratches are inevitable with every car, especially door dings. But when a car is full of scraped bumpers and dents here and there, it is usually a sign of carelessness. This would give you an idea of how often the car was serviced and maintained.
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