OBSIDIANAUTO
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Automotive Intelligence.

Expert advice, industry secrets, and technical guides to help you protect your investment in Calgary's harsh climate.

Windshield Rock Chips: What Alberta's Glass Endorsement Deletes
Featured
Guides 14th of September 2026

Windshield Rock Chips: What Alberta's Glass Endorsement Deletes

Alberta's approved auto policy deems missiles, falling or flying objects to be covered perils under Comprehensive. The approved AB-S.E.F. No. 13(D) endorsement removes glass from Comprehensive, where it is attached, unless the damage came from one of fourteen listed causes, and a stone is not one of them while hail is. What both editions of the form say, and the two Alberta inspection manuals that disagree by a millimetre.

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Lease Return Rock Chips: What Six Lenders Actually Allow
Protection
11th of September 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Lease Return Rock Chips: What Six Lenders Actually Allow

There is no Canadian standard for lease return rock chips. We read the published wear-and-tear documents of six Canadian captive lenders and found three different tests applied to the same damage — a size test, a depth test and a count test — with no two chip allowances alike. Ford Credit Canada forgives fifteen paint chips per panel. Porsche permits them only if they are under 4 cm and have not gone through the clear coat — and the second condition, not the generous 4 cm one, is the one that decides. The strictest paint standard in the set belongs to the most expensive car.

PPFDetailing
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PPF Self-Healing: What Temperature Does It Actually Need?
PPF
9th of September 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

PPF Self-Healing: What Temperature Does It Actually Need?

Every detailing site publishes an activation temperature for self-healing PPF. None of the six film makers we read publishes one. We read the published care documents for six films and found two water temperatures and not one activation threshold. The 49C figure in circulation is 120F, and in both documents that print it, it describes warm water you pour on the panel rather than a state the film has to be in. The only baseline anyone states is room temperature.

PPF
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Pressure Washing PPF: How Far Back Do You Hold It?
PPF
7th of September 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Pressure Washing PPF: How Far Back Do You Hold It?

Everyone publishes a number and almost nobody publishes a source. We read the care documents for six paint protection films and found three different standoff distances and two refusals: 3M asks for 12 inches, GSWF for 24, STEK for 36, while SunTek and Ceramic Pro say do not use a pressure washer on film at all. Only one of the six sets a pressure limit — and one document manages to call a pressure washer optimal on one page and forbid it outright on another.

PPFCeramic Coating
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Ceramic Coating Over PPF: Does It Void Your Film Warranty?
PPF
31st of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Ceramic Coating Over PPF: Does It Void Your Film Warranty?

Every page says the same thing: coating over film is fine as long as it is film-safe. We read the published warranty documents for five paint protection films and found four different positions. Two exclude coatings by brand, one excepts ceramic from its exclusions by name, and two never mention the subject at all — and one of the brand-locked films is our own supplier.

PPFCeramic Coating
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What a Ceramic Coating Warranty Actually Covers in Calgary
Ceramic Coating
28th of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

What a Ceramic Coating Warranty Actually Covers in Calgary

Sold as a number, governed by a document almost nobody reads. We went looking for eight and read the six that publish one. A missed annual service voids some warranties and quietly backdates others; the payout is capped near what you paid; almost none transfer with the car — and hard-water spotting, Calgary's most common coated-paint complaint, sits in the exclusions.

Ceramic Coating
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Rust Proofing a Car With PPF or Ceramic Coating in Calgary
Undercoating
26th of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Rust Proofing a Car With PPF or Ceramic Coating in Calgary

Oil rust proofing and paint protection film meet in exactly one place: the edge of the film. Which service goes first, why the widely-quoted "it's solvent-free" reassurance traces to a dealer page rather than a lab, why the standard advice for cleaning oil off paint is what detailers use to strip a coating — and what Calgary actually sprays, which is not the magnesium chloride everyone repeats.

PPFCeramic CoatingUndercoating
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PPF After Hail Repair: How Long to Wait in Calgary
PPF
17th of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

PPF After Hail Repair: How Long to Wait in Calgary

The waiting period everyone quotes was written for a repainted panel, and a large share of Calgary hail claims are settled with paintless dent repair — where nothing was sprayed and nothing is curing. Where the paint manufacturers actually publish this number (it is called time-to-decal, and it is days rather than months), why a booth bake does not shorten it, and the four different positions the film brands take on repainted paint.

PPFCeramic CoatingPaint Correction
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UV Damage to Car Paint & Interiors: A Calgary Guide
Protection
12th of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

UV Damage to Car Paint & Interiors: A Calgary Guide

Calgary owners blame winter for tired paint, but the city logs 2,396 hours of bright sunshine a year — more than any other large Canadian city. What UV actually destroys is the clear coat's sacrificial UV absorbers, which deplete invisibly for years and then fail suddenly. Plus the honest answer on whether ceramic coating blocks UV (it doesn't), and why heat, not UV, is what cracks your dashboard.

Ceramic CoatingPaint CorrectionWindow Tint
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Hail Dents Under PPF: Does the Film Come Off for PDR?
PPF
10th of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Hail Dents Under PPF: Does the Film Come Off for PDR?

The question no page answers properly: on a wrapped car, does the film have to come off before the dents get pushed out? It depends on the PDR method, not the film — rod work from behind leaves film untouched, while glue-pull tabs grip clear coat far more predictably than film. Plus why film can never be re-laid once removed, and the line item that should be its own line on the estimate.

PPFPaint Correction
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Can You Put PPF Over Existing Rock Chips? A Calgary Guide
PPF
3rd of August 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

Can You Put PPF Over Existing Rock Chips? A Calgary Guide

Every PPF guide assumes a car that came off the truck last week. Most Calgary film work goes on a three-year-old car with a chipped nose. The depth rule that decides whether a chip gets filmed or filled, why no manufacturer publishes the touch-up cure time everyone quotes, the 8 microns of clear coat that limit what correction is even possible, and why film can make a chip look worse.

PPFPaint Correction
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How to Prep a Luxury Car for Winter Storage in Calgary
Guides
31st of July 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

How to Prep a Luxury Car for Winter Storage in Calgary

Every winter storage checklist online is about the machinery — battery, fuel, tires, mice. The paint gets five words: give it a good wash. This is the other half: why bonded contamination sitting for five months is a different problem, what a Calgary winter's 43.5 freeze-thaw cycles do to a car in an unheated garage, the cover question answered by the people who make covers, and the honest case for coating before a lay-up.

DetailingCeramic CoatingPaint Correction
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When Is It Too Late to Ceramic Coat in Calgary?
Ceramic Coating
29th of July 2026 Obsidian Auto Team

When Is It Too Late to Ceramic Coat in Calgary?

Every Calgary shop answers this with "don't worry, we coat indoors" — which answers the wrong half of the question. Application takes a day in a heated bay. The cure takes two to three weeks in your driveway, and we could not find a manufacturer that publishes a minimum cure temperature. Why late August is the real deadline, and what happens when the no-wash window meets the first road brine.

Ceramic CoatingPaint Correction
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