[Chuck C]

What is orange peel? I hear it referred to all the time regarding clear coat finishes

 

[lux hauler]

Orange peel is usually the result of the paint drying too fast or being applied too dry. It's called "orange peel" because the surface of the paint/clearcoat looks like the skin of an orange.

 

[elwesso]

I notice that on many new cars. I know that our suburban had it in some places?!

 

[AKPsiMC03]

my 98 S10 had it in a lot of places.

 

[kcnewell]

Crappy factory paint! I bought a car with it ( Orange peel ) once and they( The Factory ) paid to have it fixed....After 7 months of haggleing!

 

[Ralph]

Crappy factory paint! I bought a car with it ( Orange peel ) once and they( The Factory ) paid to have it fixed....After 7 months of haggleing!

MUST have beed a Chrysler product!:farting: :vomit: :nyanya:

 

[kcnewell]

To tell the truth....It was a G.M. '78 pickup truck. If it was a Chrysler product it wouldn't have been worth the hassle. I mean, Who cares about the paint on a P.O.S.?

( My Dodge van was built in Canada!.....Maybe THAT explains it! ):histeric:

 

[Katshot]

ALMOST every car you find has at least some degree of it. It requires a rather expensive process to TOTALLY eliminate it. Lexus is one of the few that goes above and beyond to eliminate it. Their paint process is amazing!
Overall, taking a car back to the dealer regarding that is usually counter-productive since the quality of what you'll end up with is generally poor. They'll either apply some more clear (rarely), or just have some guy wet-sand and polish the whole car (generally the case). And wet-sanding the clear coat on a new car is a VERY questionable procedure since there is VERY little of it to start off with. In most cases, you'll be left with very little clear in several areas of the car and THAT's not a good thing if you intend on keeping the car awhile and waxing and polishing a couple times a year etc.

 

[kcnewell]

In my case...It was so bad that they wound up sending it to a local paint shop and the Mfg. paid to have it repainted. I ( of course ) took advantage and paid the difference to have some upgrades done and wound up with show quality paint at a discount price! I was gonna paint it anyway but it was SO BAD I figured that they could pay for some of it.

 

[BUILDINGCTSAMG]

my cadillac has a great paint job, the did a really great job on the cts

 

[Chuck C]

ahhh, now I know. Ya, i'd say the caddy's have a nice paint job cuz i just washed my car and didn't notice it. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough (although I washed it after reading this thread, so I was on the lookout). Of course, my car is also 10 yrs old and needs to be touched up in about a million areas!

 

[Ralph]

To tell the truth....It was a G.M. '78 pickup truck. If it was a Chrysler product it wouldn't have been worth the hassle. I mean, Who cares about the paint on a P.O.S.?

( My Dodge van was built in Canada!.....Maybe THAT explains it! ):histeric:

Yeah but your old Dodge van is still running!:tisk: My dad still has his 1978 Chev "Bonanza" truck, two tone brown in pretty good shape. No problems with the paint here, must be those hot California days. I didn't know Lexus goes through such a process to get it right, Cadillac goes through some stages as well? My 1991 brochure says they put "6 coats of protectants, sealers, primers and paint cover the 2 sided galvanized steel, as well as a zinc coating." I would call this "going above and beyond" as well.

 

[Katshot]

I'm talking the paint process itself. Lexus uses a table that they secure the car to and it rotates and rolls in such a way that the surfaces of the car are never at the same plane so as to continually keep gravity "searching" for the direction to move the paint while drying. This allows the paint to be put on "wetter" and heavier. Without this drying table, the paint would have runs all over it.

 

[Ralph]

I'm talking the paint process itself. Lexus uses a table that they secure the car to and it rotates and rolls in such a way that the surfaces of the car are never at the same plane so as to continually keep gravity "searching" for the direction to move the paint while drying. This allows the paint to be put on "wetter" and heavier. Without this drying table, the paint would have runs all over it.

I wonder what BMW or Benz does.

 

[JerseyGirl]

What is orange peel? I hear it referred to all the time regarding clear coat finishes

LOL......something you don't want on your car! I hate orange peel. My Eldo needs a new paint job...but she don't have any peel that I can see.

 

[Chuck C]

I was just examining my dad's new STS, and it looks like the whole thing is orange peel. Nothing smooth or mirrorlike...is that bc the car is black?

 

[Katshot]

No, it's because the paint process sucks on the car. Unfortunately, most of your "run-of-the-mill" cars have fair to poor paint quality. Only the top-line cars have good paint and to be honest, I've almost NEVER seen anything approaching excellent paint quality in anything other than extremely high-dollar cars. The reason is that it takes a lot of time and effort to obtain a real high quality paint job. Many people simply wet-sand the clear coat and polish in order to obtain the mirror-like finish but that's NOT the same as just laying the paint on properly. All the sanding and polishing in the world won't give you quite the same level of shine as properly applied paint but it's easier for everyone to do. Only the best painters can lay a final coat on a car and make it look like it was "dipped". I've been luckey enough to have a couple cars of mine painted in this way by a painter I know. One was even a Black car and I can only say that NOTHING would match the look of that car after a wax job. Of course I ONLY hand waxed it from day-one.