AbstractThe crater grinding test was originally developed for micro‐abrasion evaluation of thin hard coatings. It is capable of determining the wear constants of the coating and substrate individually, even for very thin coatings. Crater grinding micro‐abrasion tests also make very small wear scars and are thus virtually non‐destructive.This paper evaluates modifications of the crater grinding test configuration in order to increase its accuracy and repeatability. In particular, new geometries of the wearing wheel have been tested on bulk samples of cemented carbides and alumina, and the effects of misalignments in the test equipment are also investigated. The proposed improvements to the test are shown to generate results with better accuracy and repeatab