I bought a brand new Mini Cooper S 2009 in Mellow Yellow. Is this soft or hard paint?

Also, it is the OEM wheels. Is there a clear coat on it?

 

Soft or hard paint? It does have clearcoat, so I guess it's harder than an enamal.

The wheels have clear also.

 

I would call the water based paints OEM's use today brittle. They sure chip and fracture on impact. I have some chips on my 2008 GMC truck that look like little explosions. If money was no object, I would take a new car and have it clear coated in urethane. Actually the MINI is the first car I have owned were the finish under the hood is not the same as the exterior of the car, looks more semi-gloss.

Wheels are OE clear coated by a much better process and material - powder coating.

 

Ok, today's clear coats are still urethane. Only the base coat is waterborn. They just use less of the clearcoat.

 

To heck with the murdered out look....... Just go all chrome paint.....

 

My 2010 Mini Cooper Oxygen Blue has super soft paint.
My wifes 2010 Clubman Dark Silver is super hard.
Both roofs are black which are not as soft as the blue.
To me it seems like the non-metallics are softer than the metallics.
Is your color a metallic?

 

I don't think I have metallic. Mine is mellow yellow bought in 2009

 

Mellow Yellow is not metallic.

I also have Dark Silver and it seems like a pretty hard paint. I do have a bird sh*t stain etched into the hood from when it was a lot closer to new however.
Wasn't even on it long.

The black roof seems pretty hard as well, since surprisingly it is pretty resilient to swirls and whatnot if treated well. Cannot say the same for a lot of other black paint

 

This discussion of "paint hardness" needs to be put into context...BMW and MINI paint as a whole are a medium hardness compared to other manufacturers. There are some exceptions within the product lines such as Jet Black which is super soft, but for the most part, most of the BMW/MINI paints polish out about the same....take an LC Orange pad on my rotary, and the time to polish out defects is predictable.

Try that same combo with an Audi, VW, or Mercedes and you'll find that it takes twice as long to get half the results.

On the other hand, I have polished out both super hard and super soft Z06's that were from the same year.

When we polish paint, we're polishing the clear. The engine bay/body are not clear coated, that's why they look dull compared to the exterior.

Richard