What a gloss reading actually tells you
We quote paint correction in gloss units, not adjectives. Here is what the number on the meter measures, and why a black car and a white car can read the same.
Every car that comes in for correction gets a reading before we start and a reading when we finish. The tool is a 60-degree gloss meter: it fires light at the paint at a fixed angle and measures how much comes straight back. More light back, higher number.
Why swirl marks drop the number
Swirl marks are not one scratch. They are thousands of fine ones, left by wash mitts, dry towels and automatic washes, running in every direction. Each one scatters a little of the light sideways instead of returning it to the meter. A panel that reads 94 fresh from a good correction can sit in the low 70s after a couple of years of supermarket washes — and the eye reads that as “tired”, long before it reads it as “scratched”.
What a good correction moves
A single machine stage on a neglected daily will usually pull a panel from the high 70s back into the low 90s. A two-stage correction on paint with deeper marring can start in the low 70s and finish in the mid 90s. We log both ends on the sheet that goes home with the car, panel by panel, so the result is a number you can check rather than a word you have to trust.
The one place the number lies
Colour does not set gloss — the clearcoat does, and the clearcoat is the same clear resin on a black car and a white one. So a black car and a white car can read the same 94 and photograph completely differently, because dark paint shows the reflection the gloss is carrying and light paint hides it. That is why a black car is the hardest booking and the most rewarding one.
If you want the number for your own car, we will take a reading at drop-off and talk you through what it means before anything is booked.