It depends. It depends on the condition of the car. If you have a used vehicle then a paint correction is strongly recommended because it more than likely has swirl marks and clear coat scratches in the paint. For new vehicles, it depends on how the dealer maintained it or how the manufacturer painted it. Some new vehicles come very clean with no swirl marks and others come with paint that looks a few years old. It also depends on personal preference. Some customers do not care if their car has swirl marks while others want little to no swirls in their paint prior to Ceramic Pro application. In each case, we recommend a 2-3 step paint correction but it is not required for Ceramic Pro application. For this reason, all of our Ceramic Pro Costa Mesa ceramic coating packages come with a complimentary 2 step paint correction to remove any minor swirl marks and defects. In our opinion, the final result looks better when you polish the vehicle vs when you do not.