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Surface quality plays an important role on aesthetic appeal of any exterior component of a vehicle. As such, smooth and defect-free are some of the critical characteristics of an automotive surface. Numerous manufacturing-related factors such as production environment, substrate material, coating material, handling is known to generate defects to inherently decrease the overall quality of the external surface. Many of these defects tend to be localized while spreading over large areas of the surface. However, the vast majority of available systems are unable to unequivocally quantify surface defects, and, in most cases, the surface quality assessment is performed in a relative and rather qualitative manner. To address this, the main goal of the present study was to develop a new laser light-based technique capable to detect and quantify the localized defects that are present on the surface of reflective components for automotive exteriors.