Product Report – Auto Skin

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Product Report – Auto Skin

As part of my preparation for the Breakaway Getaway trip I did some research into ways of protecting my cars paintwork from scratches as it was anticipated that we would get a few on the trip. There were a few ways mentioned but one that kept coming up was ‘auto skin’ which I managed to find at 4WD Plus in Bayswater. It was fairly expensive at $53 for a litre and then I had to get the recommended 130mm 20mm nap roller to apply it the required thickness. You have to wash your car first and then apply the auto skin straight out of the container onto the car and use the roller to get an even coverage. The container and product reminded me of PVA glue and it went on very easily. The guy at the 4WD shop said to only do the surfaces that you expect to get scratched so I did the sides of the car up to the bottom of the window. You are supposed to let it dry for 1 hours and it cures in 24 hours to 2 weeks. It is only recommended for short term usage of up to 4 to 6 weeks.
I ended up only using about ½ litre so I have enough for another application.
It softens if it gets wet and if saturated it may come off. In fact that is how you remove it – you wet the car and it peels off in theory like a piece of cling wrap. I started to do that but could only get little pieces off so I used a pressure washer which made short work of it but left me with bits of skin all over the lawn.
I can confirm that it works as there are scratches above the line where I applied it and not much below it (well not many new scratches). I would use it again on an extended trip as I feel it gave good protection. I think it would be a bit fiddly and expensive for day trips unless you had a brand new car and really wanted to protect the paint work.

David