At some point in time, every car owner is going to experience some manner of body damage to their vehicle. From everyday wear and tear around handles and keyholes, road hazards and weather, an automobile’s body is going to take a beating.
While most car owners do not think much about these little touches of character, a collision, even minor fender bumps, will require some attention from a professional. While minor dings can often be pulled or beat back into shape, the paint doesn’t always have the flexibility to bounce back as well.
The next time you are looking for an auto body shop in St. Louis, before you even get an estimate, you need to ask if they use water based collision repair.
Water-Based vs. Thinner/Oil-Based Collision Repair
Traditionally auto body shops used industry-specific paints for collision repair. Up until more recent innovations, these paints would be used with thinners and have an oil base that was used as a means to have the paint cling to the car’s surface. Water-based paints offer the same benefits of oil/thinner-based paints in terms of quality, longevity and ability to blend into the surrounding paint. However, water-based paints are extremely eco-friendly when compared to traditional paints. Water-based paints generate 75% less pollutants than oil/thinner-based paints. This fact alone has lead to the majority of manufacturers switching to water-based paints.
When you are locating an auto body shop in the St. Louis area, be sure they are using the most up to date collision repair techniques. Due to the fact it produces so much less hazardous waste than traditional methods, many states have even begun to phase out, or even outlaw the use of thinner/oil-based paints. If a shop does not offer water based collision repair then you should keep shopping for the sake of your car and the environment. One company in St. Louis that is no stranger to the superiority and flexibility of water based collision repair is Shur-Way Auto Body, which first brought the practice to the area.
Don’t be fooled by terminology or misconceptions.
Water-based paints may mistakenly conjure up the notion that the pain being used is inferior, but nothing could be further from the truth. Another name for water-based is waterborne, which is the more common term used among auto body shops. In industry reports, which documented statistics and asked for perspective from those who worked in, produced, and even taught the auto body trade, waterborne paints were found to offer several advantages over oil-based paints.
Thanks to industry wide innovations today, waterborne paints not only meet or exceed the quality and expectations of oil/solvent-based paints, they are also more resistant to being contaminated and tend to have quicker dry times. With the phasing out of older style paints and higher flexibility when it comes to blending custom colors, waterborne paints are also becoming more diverse in their offering of colors, which means that collision repair for exotic finishes is less troublesome. No matter the age or make of your vehicle, when you are looking for a quote on body work, re-touching, or collision repair, be sure the company you take it to uses waterborne paint to ensure the highest quality and most up to date materials are used.
