Originally Posted by AlaskaPaul

My car (shark grey) was built 4/6/2015 and shipped last week to a courtesy delivery dealership (Bayside Chevrolet) here in southern Maryland from my original purchase at MacMulkin. Hopefully, it will be delivered next week, as it is being trucked, not railed, from the plant.

So today I went over to meet the nice folks at the dealership, introduce myself, and wanted to see what's up. The sales manager, Andy Thompson, was more than helpful, and I was very impressed with his attention to my needs and his very friendly attitude. He was great. He took me for a tour around the entire facility (which is under major renovation and expansion) introduced me to many of the staff, including the C7 mechanic, Mark, and went out of his way to be a wonderful host. I was very impressed with the attention I received.

Andy also took me back to the service bay where they were PDI'ing a (coincidentally) a new shark gray C7 which they had in stock. The car was beautiful, and looked great with the dark, transparent roof, which I didn't order, but will after delivery of mine.

My problem, and certainly not the dealerships doing, was that under the florescent lights of the service bay, I immediately noted a great deal of orange peel around the rear shoulders by the vents and along the upper rear next to the hatch. Very disturbing, and something I am now dreading to find on my car which will be here in a few days.

I guess my question is several fold.

# 1: Have any/many of you with shark gray noticed a great deal of orange peel, in general?

Pretty sure my SGM has some, but I took delivery in the sunlight. My car looked great.

#2: Could the lighting in the service bay exacerbate and emphasize any existing orange peel?

Most certainly some lighting brings out the worst in paint jobs. Angles also can display paint imperfections. I try not to look for things wrong with my car's paint. I'd wager, if I took the time, I could spot orange peel , but I choose to look at my car as a whole, and find it quite pleasing to my eye. Based on the number of "thumbs up" I get from passer-byes and other drivers, it must look reasonably nice to them also.

#3: Is it possible that in natural light what I observer might be less noticeable?

As I mentioned, I'm confident mine has the same flaws some owners rail against. In the sunlight (where my car usually resides when driving), looks perfectly fine to me. My guess, any flaws your car's paint will be less noticeable in direct sunlight or normal daylight then under artificial lighting.

Anybody with shark gray please chime in. I really would appreciate your experiences with this issue. Or maybe a non-issue if this car I saw today was a one off.

Thanks in advance.

Alaskapaul