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?

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

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

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

jrainlay

You need to post photos for this discussion to be meaningful...

However, I can tell you that my 2015 Shark Gray Stingray (build date 1/27/15) looks pretty good. Keep in mind, there will always be some irregularities in the surface of the fiberglass that may appear as slight ripples in certain lighting conditions. Also, it's difficult to draw a clear distinction between unacceptable orange peel and what is "normal" for today's automobiles. For example, the quality of the paint on my C7 is no worse than the quality of the paint on my 2014 BMW X5. Neither one has a perfectly smooth mirror finish.

nmvettec7

Send a PM to member MrClean1 who also just had a Shark Gray C7 produced and took delivery just a few weeks ago. He is a very nice person and car enthusiast.

He may be able to provide some insight as to how his car looks and if it has any Orange Peel affect to the paint surfaces.

marliner

My shark grey Z51 was built in March, the paint quality is average but I knew this going in to my purchase, this is my fourth Corvette and has a lower quality finish than the past Vettes I have owned. The car overall makes up the difference, the worst part for me is I was in the paint business for 35 years. JL

AlaskaPaul

jrainlay,

I can appreciate your suggestion of photos, but I went over talk to the people, so didn't bring a camera/phone and probably wouldn't have taken pics anyway.......that wasn't my purpose. As a contrast, I have a 2002 pewter Avalance with zero orange peel...........perfect paint all around......and that Chevy product is 13 years old!!

That's why I asked the question.

mrclean1

Hi AlaskaPaul,

I Picked up my SG Z51 from Macmulkin 10 days ago. I guess the real question is how **** one is about the finish. After reading these boards believe me when I tell you that I was worried about orange peel. On delivery I spent a good 20 minutes going over it in bright sun and could detect nearly none.

However, none of them are perfect. I detailed it this week and under the bright artificial light there is some minor detectable OP, but nothing that is visible from 2' away. I think it would be easily correctable, but it is so good I'm not going to bother, well maybe after I drive it a year, I'll go ahead and do it (by then it will probably need it anyway). I would rate my finish at 95% and I'm thrilled with it.

I think you don't need to worry about it. SG is a unique color that looks different in varying light, it took harsh artificial light for me to find it. I posted some photos over at the facebook site, take a look if you get a chance and I think you'll see what I mean, unless you are right on top of it in the right light it is never going to be seen.

Of course YMMV, Good Luck!

Steve

3rail

If you see orange peel, I am pretty sure it is in the clear coat, not the color coat.

I also have a SG coupe. My car was built in December, 2014. I am pretty fussy about my paint and did not notice anything objectionable on my car. My garage has two banks of fluorescent lights mounted in the cove at the ceiling that point out at a 45 degree angle. Sure I can find an area or two of OP but it does not bother me enough to worry about or think I need to polish it away.

This winter, I spent a lot of quality time in the garage watching TV and staring at the car. I did not touch the paint because I wanted to wash it first and here in the northeast, it was just too cold and garage does not have a floor drain.

I plan to strip the dealer applied finish, clay bar the surface and then apply a 3 step coating of BlackFire products applied with my trusty Porter Cable DA.

A lot of folks have commented about the paint finish on our C7's. I have seen 100K cars with paint that looked much worse.

I am happy with mine and after the BF treatment, it will shine like a jewel.

Donald

Thunder22

OP - Worrying about it before you get the car is a waste of energy. There's nothing you can do about it until your car arrives.

Relax, enjoy the process of waiting for a new car. If it has OP when it shows up, deal with it then, no point in worryign about it now.

VINDIC8R

I have a Crystal Red coupe and it saw daylight for the first time this past week. Save for the hood, my C7 has very noticeable orange peel on every other surface. It looked bad under the lights. It's worse in the light of day.

I will be showing the car to other enthusiast for their opinion. I may have to grin and bear it if the opinions come back that fixing it may have results that are worse than the disease. Otherwise, I will research for someone who can rub down the clearcoat to at least minimize the orange peel without causing any damage.

Rkvoss

I got my SG in early December and was more than pleased with both the paint and panel fit. OP was there, but very slight by my standards. I did have some micro scratches which I believe came from the shipping cover.
I gave the car a good machine polish with Blackfire TPS, which took out the scratches and gave the paint a more noticeable gloss.
I may have been lucky, but I believe the cars are coming out generally better now.

XEUROTRASHOWNER

They all have some orange peel. If your unhappy when it arrives, have it wet sanded and buffed. Just make sure you find someone who knows what their doing. I got tired of looking at mine and had it done and now it looks great. One of the few weak points of the C7. Congrats on the new car, SG is a very nice color!

tkbigsky

Orange peel is included on all models free of charge. The only real fix is to lightly color sand the clear coat and then buff, buff, buff with finer grades of polish. I am just about to undertake this on my AW Z51. That is the only way to get that show car look.

WesC7

Ugh Not good news. My CRT is being built the week of 4/27. When I had my Mag Red '01 built, it had a little OP....but not a lot.

Maybe I'll get lucky with my C7....


Sorry....didn't mean to hijack the thread....

Vetteman Jack

This. Hopefully the paint will be very good and you can just enjoy the car.

9ball1104

Someone mentioned in another post that the effect is worse on the composite panels, which I've noticed too, suggesting that it may have more to do with the type of painted surface than anything else. But there's so much else to like about the C7 it doesn't bother me much.

docprego

I've noticed it least on Arctic White C7's. I'm not sure it really bothers me anyway. You have to be looking from the correct angle and in the correct lighting situation to see it, which everyone other than you searching specifically for it, will not.

mcnwil

I am very pleased with my Shark Gray. It has very little OP in my opinion. I was at the dealer this past week for my first service and they had just received a SG coupe. I looked over that car and like mine I saw very little OP. A Laguna Blue car beside it had allot of OP. I do not understand the disparity but it exists. Don't sweat it now, enjoy the process, you will love the car in SG.

Gmoney61

I got my SG coupe in November and I've had no issues at all with the finish. Good luck.

BlueFinn

I have a 2014 night race blue C7. Never noticed the orange peel until I read about it in this forum. But it is not bad. Interestingly, my wife's car is a 2008 silver cadillac DTS. Had it for 7 years and never noticed any orange peel in the paint. Guess what? It also has orange peel. So, I don't expect anyone i(other than perhaps another Forum member) is going to notice it on either the cadillac or Stingray if it took me 7 years to see it on the cadillac.

DAFFYDRUNK

I don't think the orange peel is too bad on my shark gray. I think its more flaws on the panels that you can notice if you really eyeball it in harsh light. Mine has a few minor scratches and what look like tape residue I need to buff out too. I was a car washer/detailer at 2 dealerships when I was much younger and my car is pretty average compared to new cars I would see.