I have a question for all Vette owners, especially those who bought their C5 new.
In a discussion in another thread, it was mentioned that at production all Vette's had orange peel in the finish.

That is a bit hard for me to believe.
Did your new C5 have it when you purchase it, and those other owners, have you noticed any on your car?
On the one's that I have see up close, I don't recall seeing any.

Bob.

 

I have had three C5s (torch red, pewter and electron blue) and to some extent, I think each has had some orange peel to the paint. However, depending on the color, sometimes it is hard to see. My pewter car looked very good as does my electron blue, but the torch red showed the orange peel more than the others.

 

I have purchased two C5's new, a '98 and my current '03 Z06. The '98 had exceptional paint. As a matter of fact, shortly after I took delivery I received a letter from the BG plant paint dept. stating how they used new paint techniques and how satisfied was I with the paint. They felt they did a great job, which I agreed with. I got many compliments on how smooth that car's paint was. I've been very happy with the paint on my present car too. There really isn't any orange peel and after all these years I would have noticed by now. If it wasn't for 160k miles of paint chips, my car would look excellent.

 

Nope, just criss crossin across other forums.

When it was mentioned about OP in that other thread I had my doubts about it.
Can't believe Gm would have let too many vehicles leave the plant with an obvious defect like OP.

Bob.

 

I've never seen any mass production car that didn't have some orange peel.

 

I am the original of a 98. I did have some orange peel. It was only noticeable from certain angles. There was not a lot. I also got a lot of compliments on the paint.

 

I did not notice it on my Electron Blue 2003 when I purchased it last September. If anything I was amazed at the richness and brilliance of the paint on a 14 year old car..

 

The paint shop at Bowling Green was notorious for being vastly outdated and creating quality issues on the line. I say "was" because part of the reason the factory shut down for a period over the last C7 model year was to update the paint facilities. I don't think the paint line has had a major update since Corvettes started being built in Bowling Green. Supposedly now that the 2019 model is starting to hit showrooms a lot of the criticisms re: paint "should" be alleviated.

I was at the National Corvette Museum around the time the C7 Z06 came out and there were two Z06s with the Z07 package getting museum delivery, one orange and one red - sticker that's roughly a $120,000 car each. They were both beautiful cars, and doubly so as that was my first time seeing the new Z06. Both of them had absolutely terrible orange peel; like it was very VERY bad. Granted a lot of new cars have orange peel and paint issues as mentioned but on a car that is costing six figures it was the point of being unacceptable and would have required extensive paint correction techniques. I don't know if I would even be willing to accept it if I were paying ~$55,000 for a base car. Keep in mind also seeing it in museum delivery would be the first time those owners would be seeing the car in person.