Material for the production of autobody panels isusually dispatched in the form of coils. Because of theirweight, they tend to `compress' the lubricant applied for rustprotection and some of it leaks from the coil. Those areasaffected by lubricant starvation are known as `dry-spots' andare a cause of a number of product rejections during thesubsequent forming operation. A test was deployed with thecombined work of Ocas, CORUS IJmuiden and Renault that provedthat surface topography controls, amongst other factors, affectslubricant migration. The test consists of compressing a stack oflubricated steel sheets at known pressure for a known time usingdifferent lubricants in different amounts. It was observed that,because of the `compression', the lubricant tends to migrateto the side of the sheet, and its migration was quantified usinga Fischer Betascope MMS module. Analysis consisted of analysisof variance on several designs of experiments andsubsequent correlation with surface topography 3D parameters.These experiments showed the importance of standard amplitudesurface parameters and new closed area surface parameters tocharacterize lubricant migration under pressure.