Grimlock

My Corvette friends and I have had a chance to inspect a few C7 Vette at this point, and it looks like a great car, with one obvious flaw. I actually was watching that Corvette Nation show when I first spotted it. They had the camera zoom in (not super close) to one of the side mirrors or a red C7 and I could see *MASSIVE* orange peel on my TV. I can't recall ever seeing orange peel on a car visible on my TV. I wrote it off as a pre-production issue...but I was wrong I now see it on production cars. I have honestly never seen any new car with this much orange peel from the factory. How did the quality go down this much on the C7? I honestly felt bad for the owner of the C7 at the car meet we were at because people were all looking at how bad the paint was.

Are they addressing this? Has anyone tried to color sand it out? I have such high hopes for the C7, so hopefully they can sort this out ASAP!!!

Aviator

I did a separate post about orange peel I saw on a Torch Red C7 that was being delivered to a customer here in Atlanta. What I observed never should have passed QC. I was surprised by some of the posts I got in response - some were down right nasty telling me to get over it, as orange peel is a fact of life. Most responses were realistic though.

DoTheyMakeOtherCars?

My Blade Silver has very little Orange peel.

Glen e

The metallics resist orange peel better due to paint mix.....

R&L's C6

Interesting video on how they painted the C6's. I think since this video was made, they supposedly upgraded the paint process.

michaelinmech

And for better or worse, since their inception, Corvettes have never been renown for their paint quality. It has improved by leaps and bounds, but is still not a 'world class' element of the car, imho.

-CM-

My LRG has a good bit of orange peel.

bevo_87

what causes orange peel in the paint process?

Glen e

Try Wikipedia....good explanation....really......

adamsocb

I am not saying the orange peel is OK, but Corvette is not the only car dealing with it. I saw a brand new one of these today, and was very surprised to see more orange peel than my 2008 Corvette.



I believe the problem is with the waterborne paint delivery, it just will not flow out like the old solvent-borne paint used to. If you see a car with glass smooth paint these days chances are it has been wet-sanded and polished.

Grimlock

I looked at both red and blue cars at this point, and those two colors had REALLY bad orange peel. And water based paints shouldn't be an issue, I know that water based paints have been the only legal paint in California for a while, and all of them are being painted with less orange peel.

Slappy3243

Another orange peel thread?

Tom/99

The first C7 I have seen was metalic red. The orange peel was so bad, it could have been painted with a roller. I hope they are all not going to be that way.

Grimlock

I guess so. I did a search on the forum and through Google and I didn't find another thread on the subject. I wouldn't normally post something like this in the C7 section on this but I was absolutely shocked at how horrible the paint was. I am not talking about basic orange peel, I am talking about a shriveled up orange-like peel. I have never seen paint that bad, EVER! Since this is the halo car for Chevrolet, and has had pretty good paint in the past, I found the paint quality to be shockingly bad.

If my C7 arrived from the factory with paint this bad, I would ask for my deposit back, or for them to color sand it at their expense.

Grimlock

The blue and red (Torch Red or whatever it is called now) both were as bad as you are describing. So I would guess that they are all arriving this way so far. I hope they make a running change.

Corvette ED

The orange peel is caused by the primer

michaelinmech

^ I believe there are several factors that can lead to orange peel occurring

Glen e

I certainly don't buy it's all over and can't be avoided. I have a 2013 Torch red (VR) CHEVROLET Camaro that came perfect with NO orange peel whatsoever, in fact, more mirror like than any of the BMWS or Porsches I have owned....

Houston Z33

It depends on the color f'real - This is what I've seen so far...

White, Varies - Some of them you really have to look for it - Like have your face in it...others have had None.
Torch Red, Obvious.
Crystal Red, None.
Laguna Blue, Not much.
Cyber Grey, Really have to look and catch it at the right angle.
Black, Obvious.
Night Race Blue, None.
Blade Silver, None.
Lime Rock Green, Have yet to see one.
Velocity Yellow, Have yet to see one.

Grimlock

I believe it is cause by the different cure rates of the primer and paint. Much like tectonic plates. If the prime contracts more when curing than the paint, you have orange peel (and vice versa).

Actually paint is much worse in recent years and all cars have some orange peel. My friend has a beautiful Ferrari 599 GTB and it has orange peel. The best paint I've seen is on my friend's McLaren 12C. I am also told by a friend who details Pebble Beach cars, that Hyundai has some of the best paint these days. Companies like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Ferrari, etc. have let their quality slide a bunch. That being said, the C7 is the worst I've seen hands-down.