Swirl marks
Fine circular scratches, visible as haze or a spider-web pattern around a light source. Almost always from washing.
Correctable, usually in one step.
Paint correction is machine polishing that removes a controlled amount of clear coat to level the surface. Swirls and scratches are grooves; you cannot fill a groove permanently, so you lower the surface around it until the surface is flat again.
That is why it is quoted rather than listed at a price. How much correction a car needs depends on how deep the defects are and how much clear coat there is to work with, and neither of those can be judged from a description over the phone.
SF City Wash sells correction only bundled with at least a 12-month sealant. Correcting paint and then leaving it unprotected is not something we recommend, so it is not something we offer.
Modern car paint is layered: primer, then color, then clear coat on top. The clear coat is what you see, what shines, and what gets damaged. It is typically somewhere between 40 and 60 microns thick on a factory finish — about half the thickness of a sheet of paper.
A swirl mark or a scratch is a groove cut into that layer. Nothing removes a groove by filling it: glazes and filler polishes hide one temporarily and it reappears after a few washes. The only permanent fix is to reduce the surrounding surface to the depth of the groove, so there is no longer a step for light to catch on.
That is what a machine polisher does. An abrasive compound on a pad, driven at speed, cuts microscopic amounts of clear coat away. A cutting stage removes the defect. A refining stage removes the finer marks left by the cutting stage. Skipping the second stage is why some 'corrected' cars look hazy in direct sun.
The critical constraint: clear coat does not grow back. Every correction spends some of a finite resource. A factory finish can typically take a couple of full corrections over its life. That is why a competent detailer measures rather than guesses, and why anybody offering unlimited correction is not thinking about your car's next ten years.
Look at the paint in low direct sun or under a single bright light at night. Overcast daylight hides all of this, which is why people are surprised by their own paint the first time they look properly.
Fine circular scratches, visible as haze or a spider-web pattern around a light source. Almost always from washing.
Correctable, usually in one step.
Paint that looks flat rather than deep, with no single visible defect. Thousands of micro-scratches scattering light.
Correctable.
The fingernail test: drag a nail across it. If your nail does not catch, it is in the clear coat and can usually be corrected.
Your nail catches. That means it is through the clear coat, possibly into the color.
Not correctable. Levelling to that depth would remove too much clear coat. This is body-shop territory.
Dull rings you can feel. Minerals have eaten into the clear coat.
Correctable if shallow. See the water spot guide.
Chalky, faded paint, most often on older single-stage finishes or a neglected roof and bonnet.
Often correctable, sometimes dramatically.
The number refers to how many machine stages the paint gets. More stages means more defect removal and more time, and it means more clear coat spent.
| Level | What it does | How long | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| One step | Light correction plus refinement in a single stage. Removes most light swirling and lifts gloss substantially. | About 4 to 6 hours | A daily driver in reasonable condition, or a newer car. |
| Two step | A dedicated cutting stage then a refining stage. Removes deeper defects. | 6 to 8 hours or more | Visibly swirled paint, a car that has lived in automatic washes. |
| Three step | Heavier cut, refine, then final polish for maximum clarity. | Often a full day or more | Heavily marked paint, or a car where the finish is the point. |
Correction always comes with protection. On our packages a one-step adds $250 to a sedan sealant or coating price, a two-step $500 and a three-step $750, with those adders scaling up for larger vehicles.
This is a deliberate policy and it is worth explaining rather than just stating.
Freshly corrected paint is bare clear coat. Every trace of old wax, sealant and contamination has been polished off, which is the point — you cannot correct through a protective layer. What that leaves is the most chemically exposed the paint will ever be, and it is exactly the moment when acid, salt and UV do the most harm.
It also means the work does not last. Corrected paint left unprotected picks up new swirls faster than protected paint, because there is nothing sacrificial on top of it. You would be paying for a finish that starts degrading immediately.
So every correction we do is paired with at least a 12-month sealant. If you want longer, the same correction can be paired with a 2-year sealant or a 5-year Gtechniq coating instead. What we will not do is polish a car and hand it back bare.
Anyone who quotes you correction alone at a low price is selling you the expensive half of the job and leaving out the half that makes it hold.
We look at the paint in proper light, assess how deep the defects go and how much clear coat there is, and tell you what level of correction the car realistically wants — which is sometimes less than you were expecting.
Then you choose what protection goes over it: a 12-month sealant, a 2-year sealant, or a 5-year Gtechniq coating. The correction level and the protection tier are separate choices.
More short answers live on the FAQ.
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If it is hazy, correction is the answer. If it is deep and clean, save your money. We will tell you which.