Sanding Cars and What Should Be your Polishing Skill? Plus PPF Removal Realities. Episode #960

Sanding Cars and What Should Be your Polishing Skill? Plus PPF Removal Realities. Episode #960 Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast · Jun 30, 2026

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Term

Paint Protection Film

A clear, tough plastic wrap applied to the outside of a car to protect its paint from getting chipped by rocks and gravel.

Term

Paint to Sample

A special program by Porsche that lets buyers pay extra to have their car painted in a custom or vintage color instead of the standard options.

Car

Honda S2000

A famous two-seat convertible sports car made by Honda that is highly prized by enthusiasts for its high-revving engine and precise handling.

Term

A strong chemical glue helper used by some installers to make protective film stick extra tight to the edges of a car, which unfortunately makes it very hard to peel off later without ripping the paint.

Term

ceramic coating

A special liquid glass-like layer painted onto a car that makes water bead off easily and protects the paint from sun damage and dirt.

Car

4Runner Forerunner

The 4Runner is a rugged, truck-like SUV built by Toyota that is designed to go off-road and handle rough terrain. It is popular with people who love camping, hiking, and driving in difficult outdoor conditions.

Term

wet sanding

Using extremely fine sandpaper wet with water to smooth out the clear top layer of a car's paint to make it perfectly flat and shiny after it is polished.

Car

Toyota Highlander

A common family SUV made by Toyota that is comfortable, spacious, and built for everyday driving rather than racing or off-road trails.

Car

Chevrolet Tahoe

A large, powerful SUV made by Chevrolet that uses a strong V8 engine and is great for carrying big families and towing heavy trailers.

Part

clear coat

The shiny, see-through top layer of paint on a car that protects the color underneath from fading in the sun.

Car

Lamborghini Urus

An extremely fast and expensive luxury SUV made by the Italian supercar brand Lamborghini.

LIVE

Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast in auto detailing. Welcome to the community.

What's up, everybody? It's Nick. I am here all alone today. Marshall's taken some time off. And so just going to be me and want to welcome everybody.

HyperCleanStore.com to find any of our products if you're new here. But I'm going to talk about a few things today, some things that have come up and very, very interesting detailing stuff that I've gotten some calls on some emails on some different things like that.

So I just want to share those today. We are seeing more paint protection film on cars than we've ever seen before, right? Paint protection film has gotten massively popular over the last decade.

So obviously we have more cars driving around with paint protection film. So I get a phone call from a shop that I'm very familiar with and know the guy a long time. And they have had several incidents of cross different brands where when they were doing PPF removal on PPF, they did not install.

They have had absolutely positively huge horror stories of ripping paint off. And this latest one was on a fairly expensive car and they have a customer really, really up in arms because now it's going to cost a lot to paint this car.

We had a very long conversation. Obviously he's really distraught. He doesn't want these things to happen. They take all the precautions. But there are some realities that we all have to face. If you're a detailer or you're a shop and you don't do a lot of this stuff, it's going to come up more and more often now.

And you're going to take on some of these jobs, although look, if I could tell you any secret, if you're not going to do reinstallation of PPF or make a massive ticket, I think as a shop, you're taking on a lot of risk, even getting involved in the removal of paint protection film.

I just don't think it's worth it.

And so when I say that by not being worth it is, you know, removal number one should be done by the hour, especially if you're doing entire vehicles. It's very hard to price. It's very hard to get right. You have to use a lot of different techniques, steam, hot water, all kinds of different things.

It's even better if you know how to cut PPF and you can cut it into strips on things like the hood, which will make it even easier to take off. But if you don't have experience and as his shop is growing, he didn't really have this experience.

And now he's had two or three incidents in 2026 where he's had paint removal. He's had something on a paint to sample Porsche on an older Honda S2000.

He said he had an issue at late last year in 2025 on a Tesla, which I've seen Tesla's pull paint very easily. I've also seen it on Porsche's paint to sample. If you don't know that, that's absolutely a fact that it does happen more often on paint to sample, but it does happen on Porsche quite a bit overall, in my experience.

And then you get into manufacturers like McLaren or Ferrari or different, you know, things like that. You have the opportunity to pull lots of paint, especially if you're doing these jobs on those types of cars.

And so one of the things that really has gotten him into a bind is not properly educating the customer. Every customer that has you pull paint protection film 100% of the time you need it in writing, especially if you're a busy shop or a busy detailer, that they understand the risk is you could pull paint off.

And they're accepting that risk. Plain and simple. They are taking all of the risk. You are telling them you can pull paint. You are telling them that this could happen.

And then what do we do when a customer is upset? You go back to that agreement. But you should also, while signing that agreement with a customer, be very explicit to look them in the eye and say,

there's a 50-50 chance I can pull paint. Because that's exactly what it is. You're either going to not pull paint or you are going to pull paint. That's a 50-50 shot.

And I've removed as safely as I could with steam and hot water techniques and pulling it properly and doing it. And paint has still come off.

Plain and simple. The thing that makes paint come off even more is something that's being used by lots of shops. They don't love to admit it, but it absolutely is happening.

Not your highest quality shops, but a lot of shops are using something called Pro Bond. You can use a lot of different names for it. That's just the name I know it under.

Where basically they're taking around edges and putting this Pro Bond to stick the PPF to. It allows them to do it quicker. It allows them to wrap edges. It allows them to do all these different things.

And magically, when you're the guy that goes to pull it, that could be the thing that causes you to pull paint right on that edge.

Not all the time. You might greater chance to just leave massive amounts of adhesive behind on those corners, but absolutely aids in paint being removed as well.

So if you don't have experience with this stuff, which you're only going to get the experience through doing it, usually in this case, you need to be well aware of the lengthy conversations that need to take place.

You need to spend a crazy amount of time, you know, be at five, 10, 20 minutes walking them through the risks of removing this PPF.

And the risk goes up the longer the PPF has been on the car. Now, some cars, you could have the PPF on for like a year or two, and it would still pull paint.

There's just some paint systems that are not very resistant to paint pulling. I mean, they just have that type of paint system.

It's not all that high quality. It doesn't matter how expensive the car is. It doesn't hold up well.

And some brands are just more apt to have paint being pulled off during a PPF removal.

And they don't realize the kind of headache that can come from it. And the number one headache is you can pull paint.

Now, here's what I believe personally is that far too much PPF has gone on cars that don't really see much benefit from it.

They're not really in the economic class from a cost of vehicle to take on all this risk.

It seems like you're trying to take better care of your car, but quite frankly, you would have been better off just having a ceramic coating because all of the headaches that come with it.

And I see a lot of things like, you know, middle of the road, 40 and 50 and $60,000 vehicles with PPF on the front end.

And the customer never intended to take care of it properly. Some of it was dealership installed, some of it shop installed on the retail side of things.

So there's not one finger to point here. But what's happening is, and we had this happen on a forerunner probably a year or two ago,

where the person had no business having this PPF on their forerunner, not because they didn't love their car, but because they never took care of it.

So what happens is the PPF looked insanely ugly, all kinds of dirt around the edges, all kinds of edges coming up.

But then when we took the PPF off, there was an absolute mess. Pro bond had been used, some paint comes off, which we already kind of figured it might.

And this person is taking on this extra expense. And so when everything got done, and the car got repainted, the customer asked me,

like, should I put PPF back on my vehicle? Now, most of you would think they would just hate PPF, but that's not this type of owner.

And I said, look, man, just go with a ceramic coating. It just fits who you are better. And that customer has been happy ever since.

They're not seeing these ugly edges. It was a white forerunner on top of this. So the PPF looked horrible as it started to age.

And realistically, you now have a forerunner that has repainted panels that should have never even been in a repaint situation.

So when you're diving into this part of the market and some PPF shops, I know they just like flat out refuse to do removals.

I mean, I know shops just like that, to be honest with you, they might dive into a removal if you buy a certain level of replacement PPF package.

But a lot of times they're talking about doing a whole car, things like that. There's like just people that don't do a lot of PPF removal because they've had such bad experiences.

It can create a very lose, lose situation if you don't discuss with the customer exactly what needs to happen.

And what I'm seeing a lot is a lot of inexperience where people are showing photos online, they're like, look at all this adhesive left behind.

And I'm not saying directly that I know, but I also see the technique they were using that they put the video online and I go,

these people shouldn't have been taking this PPF off. Now they got a plastic razor blade out, they got all kinds of rapid remover everywhere.

They're in a full heavy compound and polished situation because of how they remove the PPF.

So there's experience and techniques that matter, but some things are inevitable, right?

Even doing things the right way. And you need to make people aware of that.

And I think it's one of these things where a lot of people are avoiding hard conversations.

And as you see the economy gets tougher, gets weaker, everybody just wants to take any work they can get in a lot of situations.

What happens is they're taking a lot of work with things like PPF removal, not knowing what they're doing.

And now their technique plus those cars that they're working on have a propensity to pull paint.

They're pulling paint. They didn't have a great conversation with the customer.

Now it's who's going to pay for this.

And let me tell you, there's a lot of shops that have foot the bill repainting panels because they didn't have these conversations.

They didn't have signed agreements that, hey, there's a high likelihood we could pull paint while removing this.

So protect yourself in these situations.

And that's really what I wanted to start off with today.

But I'm going to talk about something else that's kind of catching fire in the detailing space.

And that's sanding cars.

We go through these things time to time cycles of things, you know, we went through a big rotary, you know, conversation for a year.

And now rotaries turn to let's have let's talk about sanding cars.

And so what you're seeing is that as sanding has been talked about more, there's a bunch of people standing cars all over social media.

I was fortunate enough to work for somebody that I got to learn how to sand vehicles while being employed with this company.

I am very familiar with sanding. I have sanded lots of vehicles.

I have done spot sanding, color sanding, dry sanding, wet sanding, name it.

When I see things like I'm seeing on social media now, I'm not saying any of this stuff out of judgment.

I'm saying it to prevent the people that are listening to us from going down a road that a doesn't help a lot of people and be very few people make money doing.

And that's sanding in a nutshell.

Right there.

So there's a lot of very, very talented people that have put a lot of years into learning to sand cars.

I can name, you know, three or four that are very popular on social media and they have an exceptional skill and they found a way to make a career out of it.

They're the exception to the rule.

They're in the point one percent that have made that work.

But also when they're being honest behind the scenes or on camera, they're like most people, 99 percent of people should never sand a car.

It is really tough work and it's really dangerous work when somebody doesn't know what they're doing.

So now I'm seeing this whole crowd of people, young and old doesn't matter.

Mainly new people, though, grabbing sandpaper and just hacking up cars.

And they're not hacking up show cars that have five and six layers of clear and all of this has been built in to be sanded all the way down to get the texture out.

We're watching them do it on daily drivers, Tahos, Highlanders, anything and everything.

I mean, I saw a guy that it was very obvious he shouldn't have been sanding cars just by his technique doing it on a Porsche on social media.

I want to reiterate this is not to judge those people.

If I was judging them, I'd tell you the name of their accounts and go, hey, everybody go point and lap.

That's not the point of these conversations.

What would be the point of sanding a Toyota Highlander?

What would be the point of sanding a Tesla?

This stuff's happening because it's caught fire and people want to look cool on the Internet.

There's nothing cool about sanding a daily driver.

Period.

Now, if you want to talk about spot fixing things and you have the expertise and talent to do that, great.

But even that, so I've been around this for a very long time, sanding especially, and I'd probably allow maybe 56 people that I know to sand a car that I own in our industry.

I mean, I'd probably be a high number, but let's just say five people and I know what I'm looking at and I know who I would trust.

How in the world is somebody in Dallas, Texas or somebody in wherever California or in here in Las Vegas or Columbus, Ohio or Tulsa, Oklahoma or Atlanta, Georgia.

Why is everybody sanding cars?

I can't figure it out other than trying to look cool on the Internet.

Look like you're providing a higher level of service to your customers.

The question is, are they paying?

I talked to somebody recently who's sanded cars for a lot of years and would be one of the five people that I would trust that, you know, to sand a car, he would be roughly depending on the size of the vehicle somewhere between eight and $15,000 to do that work.

Do you think somebody's charging that to do it on a Toyota Highlander?

No, because anybody that's ever sanded a car knows how much effort goes into sanding a car.

How much time, how much expertise, not only that, you got to be able to buff on the highest level to make sanding really come out the way it has to, right?

So if you sand a car, and this is what people think, I'm going to sand a car, it's going to make my life easier.

Actually, anybody that knows sanding knows that you better be able to buff at the highest level from cutting, mid-step, and then you got to be able to finish at the highest level with the tool, which most people can't do.

So most people don't have the skill to sand.

They don't have the cutting ability to fix the sanding marsh properly.

They don't know how to mid-step, and they don't know how to finish on the highest level, which is very difficult work to do it after you've done all of this to achieve that top level finish.

This following trends thing that goes on, and by the way, it's not just our industry, so everybody needs to understand that, is getting a lot of cars repainted.

That's where this all ends.

Picking up sandpaper when you don't know what you're doing leads to repainted cars 100% of the time.

It may not be that day that the car goes to repaint, but I guarantee you, you take somebody that doesn't know what they're doing with sandpaper,

then they've done a cutting step that they're not really that great at, then they've done a mid-step if they actually even do a mid-step,

then they do a finishing step.

How much paint, how much clear coat, how much every of that has been removed?

It's insanity.

The kind of money you have to charge to sand entire vehicles most people can't charge.

That's why most people stop sanding cars, to be honest with you.

Even the people that have the skill and have the talent, a lot of them get out of it because they're like,

look man, it's nerve-wracking work, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of effort, and I can't really charge what I have to charge.

So before you jump into something like sanding vehicles, understand the immense amount of skill and understanding of not only how to sand,

but the paint system itself, which most people aren't going to do.

Most people that turn out to be great at sanding cars and finishing cars and all that kind of stuff, they understand paint.

They understand how paint gets laid down, they understand the different paint systems, they understand all kinds of different things that goes into producing that high quality finish.

And let's not even talk about when people are doing all of this sanding and they don't know how to do it, how uneven the texture on the car is going to look.

So a car could come out, you could do all this sanding, it actually looks worse than when you started.

Which happens more times than not, plus you've weakened the paint system, plus you've done something that the customer really didn't pay for.

You've spent all of this time, you've done it improperly.

So I think it's great when people have those skills and there's specific people that I'm thinking of in my head right now, like they have the highest level skill to do this.

And that is incredibly cool to see and it's admirable to see that.

But it's not a joke to sand a car.

It is really hard work.

It is really technical work.

And when you talk about the body lines of new vehicles, very few people have the skill to do it.

Very few.

Hell, most body shops don't even have the highest level skill to finish out a car.

I would say almost all, very few.

They're just not even in that business.

They think they're in that business, but we all know that they aren't.

Don't let yourself get caught up in people telling you stuff on the Internet that the people at the highest level already know two things.

Most people aren't going to put the time in to get the skill because it takes a lot of time and I mean years to get great at it.

But second to that, most people will tell you 99% of people that can sand still can't find a way to charge appropriately for doing that level of work.

So it's just a lose, lose situation.

And I see a lot of irresponsible sanding of cars.

And this gets to sort of a business topic to finish the podcast today.

And I think it's interesting to me.

I know I get a lot of questions about business all the time from many of you.

When did we get to a point where it's just not what's best for the car, what's best for the customer?

What customer driving a $60,000 vehicle came to you and said, sand my car?

No, you talked them into it.

I've never, I've been in this a long time.

I've never had anybody other than show cars ever asked me to sand their car.

Most don't even know that their car gets sanded.

So how did they get sold?

Because you sold them.

You told them this is what we do.

I went to this class and I run this machine over it and this machine, no, no, that doesn't work either.

I don't care what company is telling you that.

At some point to get into tight areas, you're going to have to learn how to hand sand.

And most of the greatest people at sanding sand and tire vehicles by hand, they don't use machine.

The highest level.

But let's say you did go to a class and somebody said, use this machine.

It'll help you.

So you use that on all the flat areas.

Well, think of all the angles and body lines and valleys and drops and all the different things that go on on a modern car.

Go do that to a Eurus.

Good luck.

You're going to be hand sanding at some point.

When did it get to the point that we're not asking what's best for the car and what's best for that customer standing in front of us?

And I think this has been a long, slow problem developing over the last decade.

And people ask me about my business and they ask me, you know, how I've stayed in business 16 years.

I've always lived by one motto.

What's best for that car and that customer standing in front of me?

Period.

I don't oversell people.

I don't undersell people.

I just don't do those two things because if I undersell someone, they're just going to be just as unhappy.

But if I oversell somebody, here's what could happen.

They could be happy.

But if I sanded the car, they could be in a repaint if they keep that car out in the Vegas sun in the next two to three years.

Why?

For what?

They didn't even ask for that.

They just wanted their car to look better and have their car protected.

So I am seeing so many wild videos of sanding that I felt like I had to say and talk about this today because I just go, why are we sanding so much?

Who thought this was cool?

Cool.

Go talk to people that have sanded a lot of years.

Nothing cool about it.

It's really, really hard work, high level work, stressful work.

Pay attention work where you better be on your game because one slip up and that panel you're on is going to a repaint.

It doesn't make your coating last longer.

It doesn't make the coating bond better.

It doesn't do any of that.

The only argument is I'm doing a show car.

I have the talent.

They're paying the bill.

And guess what?

Go to some show car people and tell them that you need 10 grand to sand their vehicle.

You're going to see a lot of people walk away from it.

Trust me.

I know.

And so does everyone else that's done that high level work.

There's nothing wrong with sanding a vehicle when you know what you're doing.

I told you in my career, people that are around today, maybe a handful I would trust with my own vehicle.

Maybe.

And those people deserve a lot of respect for the skills they've developed.

But now we're picking up sandpaper and we're sanding cars for what?

I can't see the defense of it.

All you needed to do was a one step and a coding application on that customer's car, but you wet sanded an entire Toyota Highlander.

It's not a flex.

You didn't take care of the customer.

You did everything but take care of them.

And that's the reality.

So when we look at all of these different things, people think that the problem ends with sanding a car.

I got news for you.

Many people sanding cars don't have the buffing and the mid step and the finishing step down enough to even start sanding a car.

Most people don't even have those down.

You would.

Here is the route you would go.

You would be able to buff mid step, whether that's one or two and finish at the highest level before you ever picked up a piece of sandpaper.

That's actually the route you would go to learn.

Most people don't even do the first route, let alone learn how to sand a car properly.

But you have to be able to buff and polish and finish out at such a high level before picking up sandpaper.

And we're skipping over all of that too and just picking up sandpaper.

I've watched people burn up cars.

Hell, you do this long enough at a high enough level, you're going to burn some cars.

You're going to burn up a panel or an edge or multiple edges.

That's how you're going to learn.

But I learned from people that had been doing it for decades prior to me ever even doing it.

And I had to learn how to run a rotary and finish out on the highest level before they ever let me touch a piece of sandpaper.

And guess what?

If I messed up, it was on them.

It wasn't on me.

What are you going to do when somebody comes back because you sanded their car and now you're in a full repaint situation?

Well, I can tell you what most people do.

They just go out of business or they blow the customer off and it becomes an insurance claim for the customer.

So I wanted to talk about these two things because we don't talk about these kinds of things all the time.

But there are things that are popping up in my world and my algorithm, my DMs, my emails, those types of things.

Guys, put the sandpaper down.

If you don't know what you're doing, which is the majority of us, 99% of us don't pick up sandpaper.

You want to learn that skill?

I would suggest paint shops, body shops, you know, body shops, not even so much anymore.

That used to be more of a thing in my opinion where it was higher quality, but you're probably talking about working at a very, very high end paint shop that is willing to take you under their wing.

And you'll have to go work there. There goes your business, by the way.

I mean, those are the people you learn from.

Maybe you can go to some training, but I can tell you what's going to happen.

Most people that go train and learn how to sand, they never utilize it.

Either they don't have the talent or they realize how much hard work it is.

It's not for the guy that's taking care of daily drivers, man.

It's not that. It just isn't.

So I hope everybody found this interesting today.

Just a couple of things I wanted to talk about.

Stay tuned.

If you made it to this part of the podcast, we are going to be doing something unique in July 4th.

We got some t-shirts that if you place a certain dollar amount in the order, you guys get a t-shirt along with some savings here this 4th of July.

Go check it out all this week, all this weekend, hypercleanstore.com.

I want to thank everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

About this episode

Host Nick flies solo to tackle two of the most high-risk trends in the detailing industry: paint protection film (PPF) removal and car sanding. With PPF more popular than ever, shops face massive liability from pulling paint during removals, especially on delicate factory finishes like Porsche and Tesla. Nick shares crucial advice on managing customer expectations and using liability waivers. He also warns against the rising social media trend of wet sanding daily drivers, explaining why thin factory clear coats make this a dangerous gamble for inexperienced detailers.

ceramic coating clear coat paint protection film paint-to-sample Pro Bond wet sanding

Chevrolet Tahoe Honda S2000 Lamborghini Urus Toyota 4Runner Toyota Highlander

Original notes

Sanding cars incorrectly can destroy a vehicle’s paint and wreck your business. But most shops and detailers jump into it without understanding what's really at stake—until it's too late. If you're tempted by the allure of quick fixes or social media hype, this episode exposes the brutal truths behind the trend and shares the secrets that only top professionals understand.

Nick, dives deep into the hidden dangers of improper paint removal, paint pulling during PPF tear-outs, and the high-level skill needed for truly bond-perfect sanding and finishing. You'll discover why most people doing DIY or misguided sanding are risking complete repaint jobs—and losing money in the process. Get the inside scoop on why sanding a daily driver is never a badge of honor, and how rushing this process can cost thousands in repairs, damage customer trust, and even shut down your business.

We break down the key pitfalls: how to protect yourself with signed agreements on paint pull risks, why badly executed sanding often results in repainting, and what real mastery of paint systems looks like.

Nick shares stories from the trenches—highlighting why most “Instagram sanders” are doing more harm than good—and reveals what truly separates professionals from amateurs in this demanding craft.This episode isn't just about avoiding disaster—it's about elevating your skill and reputation. Perfect for detailers, shop owners, and anyone tired of costly mistakes, this is your wake-up call to step up your game, understand your craft, and serve clients with integrity.

If you're serious about your career and want to avoid costly pitfalls, you can't afford to miss this.Get ready to see your work in a new light—because sanding is not a trend, it's a precision craft that demands mastery. Don't chase internet clout; chase excellence.

Chapters and timestamps

00:00 — Intro: the importance of understanding PPF removal risks
01:03 — Common horror stories in PPF removal and lessons learned
02:05 — Why removing PPF can be a shop’s greatest liability
03:57 — Educating clients and documenting risks in PPF removal
04:53 — The impact of adhesives like ProBond on paint pulling
06:19 — How long PPF should stay on and the risks of improper removal
07:13 — Handling customer expectations and installations of PPF
08:39 — Shops that refuse PPF removal and the dangers involved
09:38 — Consequences of poor removal techniques and inexperience
10:38 — The cycle of sanding and its resurgence in social media
11:55 — The skill required to sand vehicles properly and the risks of amateurs
12:55 — The dangers of sanding daily drivers without expertise
13:16 — Why most people shouldn’t sand cars and the importance of proper training
14:07 — The high cost and effort involved in professional sanding
15:26 — Why sanding doesn’t simplify paint correction but complicates repairs
16:03 — The significance of understanding paint systems before sanding
17:19 — The skill gap in the industry and the importance of finishing work
18:34 — The technical complexity of body lines and the pitfalls of improper sanding
19:25 — The business implications of irresponsible sanding practices
20:05 — Ethical considerations: focusing on the customer’s best interest
21:12 — The importance of discerning when and why to sand vehicles
22:12 — Why reckless sanding damages your reputation and business
23:45 — The failure to provide customer-centric services like proper correction and protection
26:11 — Final thoughts: avoiding shortcuts, investing in skill, and protecting your business

Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast

Nick Walters and Marshall Hill

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