What do holograms look like?
Hazy bands or trails that seem to float just under the surface and slide around as you change your viewing angle. Where wash swirls form random arcs around a light, holograms tend to run in the passes a machine made across the panel.
They’re easiest to spot on dark, glossy paint under a single strong light, which is why detailers inspect under bright lamps rather than in shade. A car can look flawless on an overcast day and show trails across the hood the first time it sits in direct sun. They sit in the same thin layer as swirl marks, the clear coat.
What causes holograms?
Machine polishing that leaves its own fine marks and isn’t followed by a finer step. Every abrasive cuts a pattern, and the coarser the compound and pad, the more visible the pattern it leaves.
3M’s Perfect-It finishing chart builds that into the process: after the compound comes a machine polish whose stated job is removing compound swirl marks, then an ultrafine polish for the finest ones. Chrysler’s bulletin 31-001-13 adds a warning about the tool: it reserves the rotary buffer for trained hands, since misuse can leave damage only a refinish will fix.
How are holograms found and removed?
Bright light finds them; a finer polishing pass removes them. GM’s PIT5763 has technicians inspect polished paint under high-intensity fluorescent lighting, then clear what’s left using a DA machine fitted with a foam pad, the tool explained under dual-action polisher.
Any extra pass still takes some clear coat, so Chrysler’s procedure has the paint measured before and after machine work. That reading is explained under paint depth gauge.
Why holograms matter before a coating, and where they come up
A coating or film locks in whatever is underneath, holograms included, and both are clear enough to show them. Brookswood Tint measures paint thickness first and finishes each correction level with a polish, so trails left by the cutting stage are refined out before anything is applied.
If you’re preparing a car to sell and its paint has been machine polished before, is paint correction worth it before selling? weighs the cost, and swirl mark removal shows how the shop corrects marked paint.