How self-healing film works, and what it will never fix

What happens in the top coat

The outer face of the film is a thin, elastic coating. When something drags across it lightly, the coating moves out of the way rather than breaking. The mark you see is a dent in that surface, not a cut.

Warmth lets the coating flow back to where it was. The dent fills, and the mark goes. Nothing is added or polished away.

The fingernail test

Run a fingernail across the mark. If you can catch it with a fingernail, assume it stays. A mark you can feel has usually removed material, and warmth cannot put back what is gone.

Heat that works, and heat to avoid

Sun on a warm day is often enough. A rinse with warm water works too. A shop may use a heat gun, kept moving, at a distance.

The temperature at which the ARK top coat starts to relax is ⟨ pending measurement ⟩. Until it is measured, we do not quote one.

Avoid open flames, and never hold a heat gun still on one spot. Too much heat damages the film and the paint under it.

Why it is slow in winter

Cold makes the top coat stiff. On a freezing day, light marks stay until the panel warms up. A heated garage or the first warm afternoon usually does it.

What it will never fix

Warmth lets a surface flow back. It cannot rebuild one.

• –Rock chips. The film took the hit, and the mark is in the film, which is the point.
• –Gouges and cuts deep enough to catch a fingernail.
• –Stains etched in by droppings, sap or chemicals left on the surface.
• –Dents. Film sits on the paint; it does not change the metal.
• –Film does not stop hail. It takes chips, scuffs and light scratches; hail dents the metal underneath, and no film changes that.

On satin film

Satin film heals the same way. The difference is what happens to a mark that does not close: a satin surface cannot be polished, so it stays. See Umbra.